Child studying math during her online lesson at home (Photo: Maria Symchych/Shutterstock)
New Study Shows California Gets ‘F’ in Handling COVID-19 Pandemic
The study found locking down businesses, stores, churches, schools, and restaurants had almost no impact on health outcomes across states
By Evan Symon, April 11, 2022 3:52 pm
According to a new COVID-19 state response study by the supply-side economic non-profit group Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CUP) released on Monday, California came in as the fifth worst performing state or district and was one of only 6 states to get a “F” failing grade.
CUP’s Report Card on the States measured and compared state pandemic performance based on the economy, education, and mortality from the virus. Equally weighted, the report looked into how the states did in balancing the health of their citizens, allowing their economies to remain operational and keeping job losses low, and keeping their schools open so that school-aged children did not suffer long term educational setbacks.
California ultimately received an “F” grade. Among the metric’s, California’s industry-adjusted unemployment rate during the pandemic of 4.8% came in 47th place out of 51, with the state’s industry-adjusted GDP dropping only -2% ranking it 21st. However, a 40th place -0.63 economy average and second worst in the nation 19.2% in-school percentage greatly hurt the state. California only avoided an ‘”F-” rating by scoring relatively well in the three health rankings, including California having the 18th lowest number of COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people in the U.S., 33rd place in all cause excess deaths, and a 27th place -0.07 mortality average.
California’s final scaled combined score was 15.5. The state only beat out “F-” finishers New York, the District of Columbia, and last-place New Jersey, as well as fellow “F” finisher New Mexico. Illinois, the only other “F” finisher, came in just a few points ahead of California.
A total of 9 states received an “A” ranking, with first-place Utah, Nebraska, and Vermont receiving an “A+” grade. The other six with “A” grades included Montana, South Dakota, Florida, New Hampshire, Maine, and Arkansas.
California comes in 47th out of 51
Overall, the study found that locking down businesses, stores, churches, schools, and restaurants had almost no impact on health outcomes across states. States like California, which had strict lockdowns, ultimately showed that they had no better performance in COVID-19 death rates than states that remained mostly open for business. Keeping schools closed was also found to have no impact on the death rates of children or adults, while also leading to greater damage in educational progress.
“Shutting down their economies and schools was by far the biggest mistake governors and state officials made during COVID, particularly in blue states,” explained CUP Co-Founder Stephen Moore 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.”
While many experts said that other factors should be taken into account to give a more complete ranking, many noted that the CUP study did verify where many of the COVID-19 trends had been going since the pandemic began in March 2020.
“Most Californians knew that keeping schools and businesses locked down and having mandates imposed for so long would be detrimental,” said James Morrison, a Los Angeles based post-COVID-19 research assistant, to the Globe on Monday. “I mean, statewide masking mandates were lifted way later here than in other states. Statewide, school masks were only lifted in February, with many districts keeping them another month.”
“But the study makes sense too. Why is unemployment still high with the economy being hurt? Because lock-downs squeezed businesses so much with some going out of business, shrinking the number of available jobs. Why is school performance going down? We kept them out of schools for so long and at home where education retention was lower.”
“And, you know, credit goes to healthcare in California for really stepping up and preventing a total disaster, but even there the pandemic could have been a lot more mitigated if pandemic emergency preparedness initiatives passed by Republicans in the late 2000’s had not been budgeted out by Democrats.
“In total though, the study reaffirms a lot.”
Other post-COVID studies are expected to be released later this year, further highlighting what went right and wrong in California during the pandemic.
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Well I am relieved, we were not given an F-, just a good ol’ solid F.????
Failed by Faulty science and a Fascist governor.
Lots of Fs and some I cannot express here!!
Just another failure for you and me and a big win for Gavin and his big global buddies.
We let them destroy our trust, our children and our homes !
OVER NOTHING !
Humans are wrong over 100 times a day- but not a SINGLE politician who locked us up will EVER
admit that or apologize.
How has the last two years failed to ‘touch’ any of our selected leaders AT ALL!?!?
We need to burst their cushy little bubble and unseat them.
I look forward to seeing if this information will get any media attention from the giant ECHO that is the main stream media today?
Thank you California Globe for another news article that has sealed the deal on this state, my home state, for me.
It is embarrassing to admit that I live in California when I travel.
It no longer carries that little bit of jealousy in the reaction I would get than it used to.
There used to be many reasons that we all paid more to live here-
Its beauty
Its diversity
Its weather
The golden,rolling hills of California.
Now we live in a burning homeless encampment and when asked for a solution, everybody throws their hands into the air or throws money on the fire.
Pull money out of politics.
If these groups want to help one thing or another, let them donate directly to that cause.
Since they did not seem to lose a single days work proposing new lockdowns and allowing emergency powers to go to our two timing governor- let them live on their salary alone.
Let them choose, their financial holdings or their job- they can not have both.
DeFund Politics and our Selected Leaders !
Beautifully said, Mary. Inspirational. It sure feels as though we are headed for a turnaround soon. It seems as though people are fully waking up to the wickedness and corruption of our leadership that you have described so well and are shoving back against it. I sure hope so, we can’t go on like this.
Mary well said and needs to be repeated often. This state is in distress.
Newsom followed his “Young Global Leaders” playbook to a “t” and got an A+ from Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum leadership, plus a handsome kickback deal on BYD facemasks from China, so you think he gives a rats’ about this survey??
Until enough people resist and stop taking orders from these globalists who are hell bent on clot-shotting you to death, we are going to lose our personal freedoms and liberties.
This whole Covid BS was a psyop scam for a lot of depraved entities…
Ah yes a study by republicans, it’s interesting when you read the actually study there are sentences like, ‘We believe…’ Seems very solid. Red states still had higher deaths from covid. I do agree blue states should have definitely opened up things sooner. However, the differences are small, I guess 1-3% is better than nothing. Would have enjoyed it if they compared to other thriving countries and to see that even our good states are nothing in comparison.
Interesting, you did not mention the charts of data in the CUP report, your opinion that this is just a “right winger” opinion piece does not mention it is supported with data from each state.
Take one example of school continuity and performance, California is at the bottom!
So you want to compare the good outcomes to other countries, then by all means check out Sweden, this country did not go into massive lockdowns and kept their children in school . Sweden had excellent outcomes. A bing search will bring up several studies and articles to back up the study stated in this California Globe report.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2026670
Exactly , CaliGirl !
The results of the decisions that California’s leaders have made at every step of this pandemic have done many things to many people- but I will tell you what it has done to me.
It made me so disgusted with the democratic party that I will NEVER put my life in their greasy hands again!
I find it amazing that anybody is still buying into the pandemic line at this point.
All California did was put off the inevitable.
Since day one, I have refused to live my life in fear.
When I had Covid for a week or two,sure I felt really sick-
but I did not need the world to shut down just for me.
I did not need people to lose their businesses, their homes or their freedoms.
I would never want to have an entire generation of children cheated out of their education
just because I did not feel well.
At NO point in time have I changed my life to cower in fear of any virus.
I see a day when people will have covid parties , like parents have chicken pox parties.
Hell, leave your info to join my next super spreader event.
Free scarlet letters for the first fifty attendees !
Get yours today !