The choices made by the various governors since the beginning of the pandemic are widening the gap between democratically oriented states and republican oriented states. All the details
Covid has carved out a party division in the United States. Democratic-oriented states, compared to republican-oriented ones, have strongly supported social distancing, school closures, restrictions on masks and vaccinations.
As a result, the former had generally lower infection and death rates than the latter – and paid with much weaker job growth. If the Omicron variant triggers a new wave of pandemic, these party gaps could continue, writes the Wall Street Journal.
Conventional wisdom at the start of the pandemic was that there was no trade-off between lives and livelihoods: protective measures that reduced transmission would also minimize economic damage. This may have been true in some countries such as South Korea and China, but not in the United States, where infections and economic activity appear to be inversely related.
Of the 10 states with the strongest payroll recovery since February 2020, all have Republican governors and eight of these were led by former President Donald Trump in last November’s presidential election. Of the 10 worst-performing states, eight have Democratic governors and eight have been brought over by President Biden.
In contrast, the 10 states that experience the highest rates of Covid infection and death are predominantly Republicans, and those with the lowest rates are mostly Democrats.
Vaccinations have weakened the economic relationship somewhat this year, allowing most states to grow even as the Delta variant has fueled a new wave of infections, especially among the unvaccinated. Yet, nearly two years after the pandemic, the economic gap remains wide.
In solid blue California and Illinois, which imposed widespread restrictions and school closures last year, wage employment in October was still down about 5% from February 2020. In Texas and Florida, whose Republican governors took prominent positions against closures and mandates of masks and vaccines, it was down only 0.5% and 1.9%, respectively.
Even the Delta surge, which pushed the cumulative death rate per capita in Texas and Florida well above that in California and Illinois, did not change that pattern: job growth in August and September was similar in all four states.
Researchers disagree on the impact of the virus, closures, masks and other interventions on health and the economy – no wonder as so many other factors are at work as well. Demographics and weather influence Covid vulnerability; Northeastern states suffered the brunt of the first wave when their populations and health care providers were unprepared. Economic performance was influenced by dependence on tourism or oil and gas, and by emigration, stimulated by crime and housing costs.
And the different more or less restrictive policies of elected leaders also played a role in the economic results, but also the different risk tolerance of the voters, which manifests itself in the way they shop, work and travel independently of government policies. In fact, some studies say that voluntary actions explain more of the behavioral response to Covid than government interventions.
Jonathan Rothwell, principal economist with the polling organization Gallup, notes that since February 2020, Democrats have been more likely than Republicans to worry about disease, isolate themselves, wear masks, and work remotely. Individuals may have adopted these behavioral norms on the advice of political and public health leaders and the media, Rothwell said. Then they internalized them, and these preferences influence the policies their elected leaders implement: more restrictive in the blue states, less so in the red ones.
There is no “right” compromise between lives and livelihoods because people value economic vitality, personal freedom and health differently. Thus, much of the response to Covid seems inconsistent in terms of costs and benefits. The evidence generally supports the use of masks to limit transmission but not the closure of elementary schools. Yet risk-averse blue jurisdictions tended to both make masks mandatory and close schools, while risk-tolerant red jurisdictions did neither. Masks are much more valuable to the unvaccinated than to the vaccinated, but the unvaccinated are less willing to wear them.
One study found that people tended to read and trust news sources that confirmed their pre-existing pessimistic or optimistic biases about the pandemic – biases that were themselves closely aligned with political preferences. Yet a third found that financial incentives, reminders and public health messages failed to induce the unvaccinated to get vaccinated; in some cases, they did the opposite.
This poses a great challenge to Biden. He and other leaders of the Blue States are deeply reluctant to go back to closures due to the economic cost. The President’s plan is to vaccinate the majority of the population in order to achieve herd immunity and make the pandemic end on its own.
Biden said this week that the best protection against Omicron was “to be fully vaccinated and given the booster injection … if people are vaccinated and wear their masks, there is no need for blockages.”
But this plan is challenged by mutations in the virus and decreased vaccine protection. Each new wave of infections triggers deep-seated fears even among the vaccinated, Rothwell said. If Omicron leads another wave of cases and hospitalizations, “it will be another quarter of struggle for restaurants and the travel industry, especially in the blue states. Many red states have decided that the pandemic is over and have returned to normal life ”.
(Extract from the foreign press review by eprcomunicazione)
