What the Blue State Covid Fighters Got Wrong
Five years after the start of the pandemic, a new book argues that liberal America’s deference to expertise morphed into intolerance for dissenting views.
Illustration: Mikyung Lee for Bloomberg
As Covid-19 began to sweep across the US five years ago, states run by Democratic governors were quicker than those run by Republicans to shut down schools, offices and restaurants. As the pandemic wore on, they were slower to reopen, and more willing to impose mask mandates and other precautionary measures.
How many lives did this more cautious approach save? Not many, by the looks of it. At the end of 2020, Democratic and Republican states had experienced nearly identical numbers of Covid-19 deaths relative to population. The blue-state totals were perhaps inflated by high mortality in four Northeastern states where Covid spread widely before anti-pandemic measures were imposed, but even with them excluded there was no clear partisan pattern.