In no surprise to conservatives, the GOP-led state of Florida outperformed Democrat-controlled California and New York when it came to their coronavirus responses, according to a comprehensive new study.
The conclusions vindicate the leadership of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was relentlessly vilified by Democrats and their corporate media allies over his pragmatic, science-based management of the pandemic.
In its 20-page report, the Committee to Unleash Prosperity said the states that followed the most draconian COVID-19 policies — such as closing schools and shuttering businesses — lagged behind states such as Florida that followed a commonsensical approach to the pandemic.
The study was authored by Wall Street Journal writer Stephen Moore, University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan and free-market policy analyst Phil Kerpen.
The research compared COVID-19 outcomes in all U.S. states based on three major variables: health outcomes, economic performance throughout the pandemic and impact on education.
According to the study, the outcomes in New York, New Jersey and California “were among the worst” in all three categories: mortality, economy and schooling.
In contrast, the best outcomes occurred in Utah, Nebraska, Vermont, Montana, South Dakota and Florida. All six states are led by Republican governors.
As a reminder, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace in August 2021 amid reports that he had ordered coronavirus patients to be admitted into nursing homes, resulting in the deaths of thousands of senior citizens.
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Similarly, California Gov. Gavin Newsom came under fire for closing beaches and playgrounds in contravention of scientific studies showing that outdoor coronavirus transmission was negligible.
Newsom was also caught several times defying his own oppressive mask mandates.
Once again proving the epic utter fail of leftist lunacy, mandates & masks=>
“Newsom’s COVID Cases Explode, Double DeSantis’ Florida Numbers” https://t.co/EgauEHhuBO #MOGov #MOSen #MOLeg@933KWTO @NewstalkSTL
— #ThePeoplesSpeaker™️ (@SpeakerTimJones) December 9, 2021
Moore, the chief economist for the Heritage Foundation, summed up the results on Monday.
“In a study of economics, education, and health during COVID-19: Florida was right all along, and California was wrong,” he tweeted. “Shutting down life as we know it was a BIG mistake for Democrats!”
In a study of economics, education, and health during COVID-19:
Florida was right all along, and California was wrong.
Shutting down life as we know it was a BIG mistake for Democrats!
— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) April 11, 2022
In a nutshell, the report concluded that mass business shutdowns and school closures had little impact on coronavirus mortality rates. However, the oppressive measures did have a dramatic negative impact on the economy and on children’s well-being.
According to the research, the states that “maximized the individual freedoms of business owners, consumers, workers and parents — and allowed their citizens to make their own risk assessments without government mandates — had the best performance.”
“It turns out that in most cases, citizens living in states with minimal government interventions — including Nebraska, Iowa, Florida, and others — were able to make wise health-conscious assessments without an abundance of government rules and mandates,” the report said.
“These states came through the pandemic with the least amount of collective damage to their economies, the education of their children, and with health outcomes that were in most cases no worse than states that used more heavy-handed tactics to slow the spread.”
Specifically, the COVID-19 responses of Democrat-controlled New York, California, New Jersey, Illinois and Washington, D.C., were abysmal, as these states “had high age-adjusted death rates; they had high unemployment and significant GDP losses, and they kept their schools shut down much longer than almost all other states,” the report said.
Moore, the co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, said the disparate impact of the various states’ different coronavirus policies underscores that Big Government oppression of individual civil liberties does far more harm than good.
And, he said, we should not repeat the same tragic mistakes when yet another coronavirus variant — or another pandemic — surfaces.
Meanwhile in Shanghai forced quarantine pic.twitter.com/sG7nUHRya1
— Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) April 12, 2022
Tucker Carlson on the COVID lockdown in Shanghai: “Has there ever been a clearer picture of what hell is like?” pic.twitter.com/6I1RPtjPIV
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 12, 2022
Residents in #Shanghai screaming from high rise apartments after 7 straight days of the city lockdown. The narrator worries that there will be major problems. (in Shanghainese dialect—he predicts people can’t hold out much longer—he implies tragedy).pic.twitter.com/jsQt6IdQNh
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) April 10, 2022
“Shutting down their economies and schools was by far the biggest mistake governors and state officials made during COVID, particularly in blue states,” Moore told Fox News on Monday.
“We hope the results of this study will persuade governors not to close schools and businesses the next time we have a new virus variant,” he said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
