But a new study only confirms what most Floridians understand: That Florida outperformed blue states in dealing with the virus - something tacitly admitted by the droves of liberals who stay and complain about DeSantis rather than move to New York, New Jersey, Illinois, or California.

Study: Florida, States That Governed With A Light Hand Fared Much Better During Pandemic

We’ve heard the testimony of Florida’s success in fighting COVID-19 — as best told by photos of left-wing Democrats, such as U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Eric Swalwell and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, vacationing in the state led by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, or “Death” Santis to some critics.

But a new study only confirms what most Floridians understand: That Florida outperformed blue states in dealing with the virus – something tacitly admitted by the droves of liberals who stay and complain about DeSantis rather than move to New York, New Jersey, Illinois, or California.

The Committee To Unleash Prosperity, graded states by comparing COVID-19 outcomes in three general areas: the economy, education, and deaths.

But a new study only confirms what most Floridians understand: That Florida outperformed blue states in dealing with the virus - something tacitly admitted by the droves of liberals who stay and complain about DeSantis rather than move to New York, New Jersey, Illinois, or California.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, High Point Community in Hernando County Feb. 24, 2021

The authors noted that while the federal government made numerous mistakes, one wise decision was to permit 50 individual states to pursue their own policies. As they wrote: “Federalism worked.”

“States learned from one another over time about what policies worked most and least effectively in terms of containing the virus while minimizing the negative effects of lockdown strategies on businesses and children,” the report says.

The general outcome: Florida and other red states significantly outperformed blue states.

On the economy, for example, the study analyzed unemployment rates during and pre-COVID. They then adjusted that along with state GDP, while accounting for a state’s premier industries, such as oil and gas production or tourism.

Florida ranked 13th nationally, as 10 of the top 13 were red states. Montana ranked No. 1, while Washington, Nevada, and Maine were the only blue states in that group. The bottom was all blue, with the last eight slots filled by Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Hawaii.

As for education, the authors looked at school closures and the amount of in-person instruction.

“School closures may ultimately prove to be the largest policy error of the pandemic era in both economic and mortality terms,” the study noted. One report found that “learning losses from pandemic era school closures could cause a 3% decline in lifetime earnings, and that a loss of just one-third of a year of learning has a long-term economic impact of $14 trillion.”

Among those with the highest amount of cumulative in-person instruction, Wyoming ranked first, with 100 percent. Florida was third, at 96.2 percent, narrowly behind Arkansas.

The first blue state on the list was Connecticut, in 23rd place. The bottom 12 states included 10 blues and one purple, Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia, which was dead last.

Finally, as for deaths, the authors analyzed that based on age, considering COVID deaths were higher among the elderly, and adjusted for “metabolic health,” to account for conditions such as diabetes and obesity.

Florida ranked 22nd overall, with a death rate of 277 per 100,000 residents.

While blue states led this category – the top spots went to Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, Oregon, and New Hampshire – Florida is a special case to consider. That’s because liberals across the country were almost solely focused on discrediting Gov. DeSantis.

Worth noting that the committee’s results found that Florida’s performance aligned with supposed blue-state stars, or greatly exceeded others, despite having roughly 5 million senior citizens.

The Sunshine State’s death rate (277 per 100,000 residents) was indistinguishable from California (270), Michigan (also 277), or Illinois (283).

But Florida greatly outperformed Connecticut (309), Pennsylvania (315), New Jersey (380) and New York (383).

In their conclusion, the authors noted, “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.”

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Free Press.

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