{"id":240225,"date":"2021-05-01T20:23:31","date_gmt":"2021-05-01T17:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/strict-states-ruined-livelihoods-without-saving-lives\/"},"modified":"2021-05-01T20:23:31","modified_gmt":"2021-05-01T17:23:31","slug":"strict-states-ruined-livelihoods-without-saving-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/strict-states-ruined-livelihoods-without-saving-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"#Strict states ruined livelihoods \u2014 without saving lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Strict states ruined livelihoods \u2014 without saving lives<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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At a time when politics has become vicious and national, Americans would benefit from looking at leaders\u2019 competing visions at the state level. Who is actually making people\u2019s lives better or worse, and how? The public may be starting to do so as Govs. Ron DeSantis, Gavin News<\/a>om, and Andrew Cuomo have attracted national attention for \u2014 well \u2014 a variety of reasons. But their controversies only scratch the surface. One of the important and under-app<\/a>reciated stories of the last year is how pro-lockdown states ruined the livelihoods of millions of Americans without any lives saved to show for their heavy-handed interventions.<\/p>\n

Most states with the strictest COVID lockdowns destroyed millions of jobs for their citizens, while those with modest, targeted rules are largely experiencing low levels of unemployment even for normal times.<\/p>\n

The relationship between state lockdown stringency, quantified by a simple average of four lockdown measurements from\u00a0May, July, October<\/a>, and\u00a0January<\/a>\u00a0from WalletHub and\u00a0unemployment rates in March,<\/a>\u00a0from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is strong and statistically significant.<\/p>\n

The five states with the strictest lockdowns over the last year \u2014 Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York \u2014 have an average unemployment rate of 8.06 percent. In the five states with the lightest restrictions, unemployment sits at just 3.48 percent \u2014 lower than the 3.5 percent national rate before the pandemic hit the US.<\/p>\n

\"People
People crowd the beach, while other jurisdictions had already closed theirs in efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19 in Clearwater, Florida on March 17, 2020.<\/figcaption>
REUTERS\/Steve Nesius\/File Photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of course, there are a few outliers. Small, rural Vermont and Maine had strict policies and low unemployment, while federal-employment-reliant Virginia had strict policies and slightly below-average unemployment, too. None of the 16 laxest states had unemployment above the national average, however, and the overall trend among states is strikingly clear.<\/p>\n

Eight of the 10 highest unemployment states, meanwhile, had unitary Democratic state governments in 2020, and the other two had divided party government. Six of the states with the 10 lowest unemployment rates had unitary Republican state government, while the other four had divided government, and just one Democrat.<\/p>\n

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A server takes a customer\u2019s order at Kellogg\u2019s Diner in February, when New York City indoor dining resumed at 25% capacity.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Based on the relationship above, if the 15 states with the strictest lockdowns eased their policies to the level of the average state, they would have about 865,000 more people employed today. And progressives should understand \u2014 maybe they already do \u2014 that these restrictions are not putting investment bankers and corporate lawyers out of work, but rather low-wage workers in greatest need.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0government, the unemployment rate<\/a> for Americans with a college degree was 3.7 percent in March, 6.7 percent for those with just a high school diploma, and 8.2 percent for those with less than that. According to the\u00a0Economic Policy Institute<\/a>, the US lost 11 million jobs last year with an hourly wage below $19.48 while gaining a million jobs with an hourly wage above $31.39.<\/p>\n

At the same time, ample scientific evidence points to the fact that lockdowns did not save lives, regardless of the media<\/a> force-feeding its preferred narrative to the public. There was no correlation at all between the aforementioned lockdown stringency index and total COVID deaths, compiled by\u00a0Worldometer<\/a>, through the beginning of March. The strictest states had an average COVID mortality of 1,423 per million and the laxest states of 1,449, while the average state was higher than both at 1,482.<\/p>\n

\"People
People are seen gathering on the Corona del Mar State Beach on April 25, 2020 in Newport Beach, California.<\/figcaption>
Michael Heiman\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0by five University of Chicago scholars published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists of the United States of America stated that: \u201cWe do not find detectable effects of [Shelter-In-Place] policies on disease spread or deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

A medRxiv\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0by several other professors concluded bluntly that \u201cClaimed benefits of lockdown appear grossly exaggerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a peer-reviewed\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0by European epidemiologists in the journal Frontiers in Public Health found that \u201cStringency of the measures settled to fight pandemia, including lockdown, did not appear to be linked with death rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the saying goes, \u201cfollow the science<\/a>.\u201d There have been several vital non-medical and medical interventions that saved lives from COVID \u2014 rapid vaccine development first among them. Yet, there is simply no strong evidence that strict, lengthy lockdowns saved lives, while there is strong evidence that they destroyed livelihoods.<\/p>\n

\"People
People enjoy the weather in Central Park, the day before the city started phase two of reopening after the lockdown in Manhattan on June 21, 2020. <\/figcaption>
REUTERS\/Jeenah Moon<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Progressive politicians across the country assumed unique powers in the last year, took away personal freedoms, and destroyed livelihoods without saving lives, but they\u2019ve still yet to admit their historic failures or be held accountable for committing them.<\/p>\n

The public should ask why progressives should attempt to bring major change to the nation, let alone govern any state government, when they have failed families so starkly across the country.<\/p>\n

Ryan Fazio is an investor, writer, and local government official in Connecticut. He tweets\u00a0@ryanfazio<\/a>.<\/em>\n <\/div>\n