My research into the socioeconomic factors that explain statewide differences in COVID death rates has shown that California’s broad-based use of mandates led to sharp losses in overall economic activity but had little to no impact in saving lives.
The extent to which each state used mandates to control the spread of COVID can be quantified by referring to Oxford University’s Stringency Index, which measures the extent of statewide policy interventions. Over the period of January 2020 to July 2022, California’s Stringency Index score was the fourth highest of all 50 states. My research shows that this led to a loss of 43,000 jobs and contributed to California’s relatively high unemployment rate.
These findings are not unique to California. My empirical findings, for example, show that the ten states with the lowest stringency scores between January 2020 and March 20222 had, on average, 1 percent more jobs than pre-recession levels. In sharp contrast, the ten most stringent states – a group that includes California – had, on average, 2 percent fewer jobs.
Some would argue that these job losses were justified, given the lives saved as a result of California’s tougher stringency. Not so. Although my findings show that California’s higher stringency saved lives for several months in late 2020, during all other periods, it had no measurable impact.
In an article of mine that was published in the Journal of Bioeconomics, Volume 25, Issue 3, December 2023, entitled “The Impact of Vaccinations and Chronic Disease on COVID Death Rates,” I extended my research to cover the March 2021 to December 2022 period. During that 21-month period, the total number of weekly COVID fatalities experienced two peaks during the spread of the highly contagious Delta and Omicron variants.
My findings are conclusive: No discernable relationship exists between statewide differences in average stringency scores during that period and COVID death rates. That, in turn, means that California’s higher average stringency score of 29.1 versus an average score of 20.1 for all other states during that period had no beneficial impact in saving lives. It did, however, negatively affect California’s economy both in terms of lower growth in jobs and personal income.
While stringency had no measurable impact in saving lives, my empirical findings, as reported in the Journal of Bioeconomics, point to vaccination rates as the principal factor explaining statewide differences in COVID death rates. The regression findings in my study suggest that COVID vaccinations (including boosters) led to 427,000 lives being saved in the nation.
Although California’s ham-fisted use of restrictive mandates did not save lives, its higher average vaccination rate did. By February 1, 2023, 74.6 percent of California’s population were fully vaccinated, as compared to 69.2 percent for all other states. That difference alone accounts for an additional 5,000 lives being saved in California. It should be noted that this happened without the sharp loss of jobs that occurred as a result of California’s overuse of stringency mandates.
If mandates did not save lives, why then did California have a lower COVID death rate than Florida, a state with a relatively low Oxford stringency score? The explanation for California’s lower COVID death rate versus Florida is not because of mandates but because of the different age profiles in each state.
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The fact that the percentage of people over the age of 65 in California is 14.3 percent versus Florida’s 20.5 percent matters – it matters big time. When I used age-adjusted data to convert statewide differences in ages, California’s age-adjusted death rate was roughly the same as Florida’s.
Perhaps the most significant long-term cost of California’s indiscriminate lockdowns will be the closure of almost all its public schools. The percentage of cumulative in-person education shows that California ranked last of all 50 states at 19.2 percent. That compares to Florida’s 96.2 percent – the third highest in the nation. The long-term losses from California’s public school lockdowns will have their most negative impact on students from low-income families, a tragic loss that had no benefit in lives saved.
James L. Doti is president emeritus and professor of economics at Chapman University.