At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a general consensus behind lockdowns and masking.  Even most Republican-held states shut down schools, businesses, and large gatherings for a period of time.

When it became clear this was not a viable long-term strategy, some states reopened and focused on less coercive measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.  Covid restrictions quickly became a partisan issue, where Republicans advocated for opening up faster and finding alternate solutions to the pandemic, and blue states supported stricter lockdowns.

Republican states have been vindicated yet again with the release of a new study that ranked states in order of how they handled the Covid-19 pandemic.  The study looked at states’ performance on factors such as education and the economy and how successful they were at containing Covid-19.

Blue states that advocated for harsh lockdowns that lasted a more extended period of time consistently came in last, while red states that lifted pandemic restrictions earlier consistently came in first.

FOX News Reports–

 

 

 

“A new study has graded states by how well they handled the coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent restrictions and lockdowns, showing a stark contrast between liberal and conservative states.

The Committee To Unleash Prosperity study compared state performance on metrics including the economy, education, and mortality from the virus, and examined how states and their respective governments handled the pandemic response.

“Shutting down their economies and schools was by far the biggest mistake governors and state officials made during COVID, particularly in blue states,” Steve Moore, co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, told Fox News Digital. “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.”

New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois were among the worst in dealing with the coronavirus, performing “poorly on every measure,” the report said.

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 added.

States like Utah, Nebraska, Vermont, Montana, South Dakota and Florida — all governed by Republicans — received the highest scores in the study, first through sixth, respectively. In fact, 13 of the top 15 states in the study are governed by Republicans.”