News From the Non-Lockdown States: Per-capita Covid fatalities were 75% lower in open states

WSJ editorial.

"GOP governors have faced enormous media pressure to lock down their states in solidarity with Democrats, and some now are getting browbeaten to shut down again amid coronavirus flare-ups. So it’s worth pointing out that states that didn’t lock down this spring kept the virus under control and experienced fewer deaths than most that did.

A new analysis by The Sentinel, a Kansas nonprofit, compares the 42 states that shut down most of their economies with the eight that did not. The latter group includes mostly rural states with some small metropolitan areas: North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Utah. Private employment on average fell by 7.8% between May 2019 and May 2020 in these states while plunging 13.2% in the others.

Rural state economies generally rely more on “essential” services like agriculture and food production, and some industries like energy and hospitality would have shed jobs regardless of the lockdowns. Still, private job losses were higher in states that locked down like Colorado (9.5%) compared to economically similar ones that didn’t like Utah (4.6%).

Yet per-capita Covid fatalities in states that stayed open were on average about 75% lower than those that locked down. One reason is that deaths in most states, regardless of whether they locked down, have been concentrated in nursing home facilities and minority communities that have higher rates of underlying health conditions and multigenerational housing.

This is a main reason hospitalizations and deaths continued to surge in states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Massachusetts long after lockdowns took effect. About half of deaths in New Jersey and Illinois have been in nursing homes, and most others have been in dense low-income minority neighborhoods where social distancing is difficult.

Deploying more tests and protective equipment can help shield these vulnerable communities, and citizens can do their part by donning face masks in public indoor locations like supermarkets. But governors don’t need to intubate their economies to save lives."