Overreaction by states to previous waves did substantial damage without much benefit in reducing the effects of the coronavirus

See With the Omicron variant here, states must avoid past mistakes by Vance Ginn, Ph.D. and Erik Randolph. Mr. Randolph is the Director of Research for the Georgia Center for Opportunity. Mr. Ginn is chief economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Excerpts:

"The research shows a statistical correlation between how severe state governmental actions were in shutting down their economies and negative impacts on employment more than a year after the pandemic began in America. This was the case even after controlling for a state’s dependence on tourism or agriculture, population density, and the prevalence of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations.

Our research found no correlations between the severity of shutdowns imposed by state governments and the rate of reported COVID-19 hospitalizations or deaths.

What we do know is that nationally, there are 3.3 million fewer people employed in the private sector since February 2020, a month before the shutdowns in most states. But the job loss is not spread evenly across the country.

Our study did not settle for simply comparing the job loss as measured from February 2020, the month before the pandemic hit. Instead, we ran more than 200 ARIMA model forecasts to capture pre-pandemic trajectories in an effort not to skew the results. Not all states had upward trajectories, and job growth rates varied from −0.8% to 2.9% for the 12 months prior to the pandemic.

States like Hawaii, New York, California, and New Mexico that imposed harsher economic restrictions generally have greater job losses even today than those states that were less harsh, such as South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Utah. For example, New York was 10.2% below its trajectory in October 2021 while Nebraska was just 2.4% below."