COVID study
Here’s a lengthy report that studied the effectiveness of different states’ reactions to COVID. It’s complicated and I’m not going to write about it in detail at the moment (maybe never), but it’s worth looking at.
Here are some of the findings:
Excluding the geographically unusual cases of Hawaii and Alaska to focus on the continental U.S., there is no apparent relationship between reduced economic activity during the pandemic and our composite mortality measure…
The one piece of good news in this study is that states which 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. 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. From the start, there was an obvious and hard to determine balancing act between health risks and allowing Americans to go about their lives in a productive way. The states that tilted this balancing act toward more individual freedom and choice had far superior outcomes than states where politicians, government agencies and courts made these decisions for them.
In Scott Atlas’ book, A Plague Upon Our House, he agreed with DeSantis and recounts that Trump agreed with him but the Trump White House staff were afraid to fire Fauci or Birx. He attended meetings and brought current references that no one ever read. He gave up before the election.
The downside of freedom is that the FBI is then left with no excuse for kidnapping governors.
I’m surprised the study, despite its high quality, got as much traction in the press given its provenance from a more conservative source, and the background of the authors. I thought it would have been buried right after I first saw it a few days ago.
The report starts off with a h/t to Jay Bhattacharya, of Great Barrington notoriety.
It will be buried like the Biden laptop, like James Hodgkinson, like Monica’s dress, until it’s useful for the Uniparty to spread the word that WuFlu is no longer a danger.
Not there yet, as Philly just reinstated masking in indoor settings. The feds just extended the airplane mask requirement.
I think they’re waiting until closer to the elections to appear benevolent and caring about the welfare of the proles.
Until then, the virus is the worst thing ever and it’s all Trump’s fault.
I want everyone here to note that Nebraska ranked #2!
Nebraska – in football and taxes – is never at the top of these rankings.
Much credit to Gov. Pete Ricketts.
(BTW, Creighton is consistently in the top 25 for men’s college basketball and as a top Midwest University; so there’s that.)
MikeK: “In Scott Atlas’ book, A Plague Upon Our House, he agreed with DeSantis and recounts that Trump agreed with him but the Trump White House staff were afraid to fire Fauci or Birx.”
I felt that I got a lot from the book. He lays down important bits of history and portraits of the personalities. I was moved how how he chided pretty much all of us and called out all Americans. Some politicians, media and bureaucrats were frankly evil. But there were lots of people who went along but should have spoken out. Too many complied too much. Too many of those who stood up were left to twist in the wind.
I was also puzzled by physicsguy’s concern. When I looked, I saw that NBER was a source for the research. Well, one source. I didn’t fully understand what NBER was either, though I know moderate/lefties like Alan Blinder had been a top person at NBER some considerable time ago. It’s a private and not governmental research org.
Here are two different links to the same research paper.
https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Which-States-Handled-the-Covid-Pandemic-Best.pdf
https://www.nber.org/papers/w29928
Of course the report found that, “The one piece of good news in this study is that states which 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 could hardly be otherwise, given that in the states that maximized restrictions, it was never about health. It was about brainwashing the public to get used to giving up essential liberties for promised safety.
Tucker Carlson: ‘If we want to know what the future looks like, you can look at China and shiver’
https://www.rebelnews.com/tucker_carlson_if_we_want_to_know_what_the_future_looks_like_you_can_look_at_china_and_shiver
“In Scott Atlas’ book, A Plague Upon Our House, he agreed with DeSantis and recounts that Trump agreed with him but the Trump White House staff were afraid to fire Fauci or Birx.” Mike K
Trump’s greatest flaw was and still is his inability to surround himself with people who actually support his POV, along with his failure to “trust but verify” the people with which he surrounds himself.
If firing Fauci and Birx was a political non-starter, he could have and should have ‘promoted’ them into a position from which they could do no harm. If none existed, create one but one way or another, he had to get rid of them but he either didn’t or did so far too late.
So too with McMaster, Kelly, etc.
Instead, Trump allowed the purging of the very people who actually shared his POV. Now, he’s endorsing more RINOs, so he clearly hasn’t learned from his biggest mistake.
Wisconsin got a F, thanks to the efforts or feckless governor, Tony ” Skeletor ” Evers, and his close down the state idea.
@Geoffrey Britain:Trump’s greatest flaw was and still is his inability to surround himself with people who actually support his POV,
I’m not sure that’s very fixable. Because he was a Washington outsider, he didn’t have the network of six-degrees-of-separation that lets you bring in large numbers of new officials, that someone like say Jeb Bush would have had.
If he’d had that he’d have been a Swamp Creature.
Suppose you were somehow made President tomorrow. Who would you know that could help you fill these positions? Trump was not much better off than you or I.
It’s not just Cabinet-level posts right, its hundreds, and if you want them to accomplish anything, they have to have relationships with the people they will command who are civil service and don’t change when the administration changes.
@ Frederick –
Basically I agree with you, but I think Geoffrey has this correct: “Instead, Trump allowed the purging of the very people who actually shared his POV. Now, he’s endorsing more RINOs, so he clearly hasn’t learned from his biggest mistake.”
He still doesn’t have the pre-fab Swamp to bring along with him, which is what any Republican President will need, because the GOP has allowed the Democrats to monopolize government service for decades, if not a century.