But there was a strongly negative relationship between state stringency and economic performance. The study found no statistically significant relationship between the stringency of state COVID regulations and death rates. Its authors pulled each state’s scores from an Oxford University index of COVID responses - including business and school closures, restrictions on public gatherings and travel, testing requirements, and mask and vaccine policies - and compared them to measures of risk-adjusted COVID-related deaths, economic growth, and unemployment. The Paragon Health Institute has just released a careful evaluation of the competing claims. They do not, however, constitute an iron-clad defense of Cooper’s decision, for there were other states that both regulated less than North Carolina and experienced comparable or better COVID outcomes, including Colorado, Wisconsin, Utah, and Florida.
They also point out that while North Carolina was stricter than our neighbors, we opened up more quickly - and thus sustained less damage to our economy and personal liberties - than did such states as New York and California.īoth claims are true. Cooper and his defenders observe that North Carolina’s COVID death rate, even after adjusting for age and other risk factors, was significantly lower than the death rates of less-restrictive neighbors such as South Carolina and Tennessee. State legislators, with Cooper’s acquiescence, fixed the legal problem last year by clarifying that our governors have no inherent power to act during public-health emergencies - that such power is granted by the General Assembly and strictly limited in time and scope.īut were the governor’s restrictions on commerce, travel, and public services wise? That question is still fiercely debated. Shortly after that, we began to complain that our officials were not weighing these two sets of risks properly and that the governor’s unilateral actions were neither legal nor wise.
Shortly after Cooper issued his first shelter-in-place order in March 2020, my John Locke Foundation colleagues began to scrutinize the available data on the risks posed both by COVID-19 and by government responses to it. As I wrote at the time, a genuine respect for the good intentions and public service of government officials does not require that we accept their edicts without scrutiny or complaint. It represents a rare exception to the rule that private property should be inviolate and that informed consent, not government dictate, is the proper way for people to manage the risks and rewards of life in a civilized society. Infectious disease is one of the few cases in which highly coercive action may be required to protect public health and safety. They shut down businesses, withheld basic public services such as in-person schooling, and ordered healthy, law-abiding citizens not to travel, to visit their loved ones, or even to enter a house of worship (though that last edict didn’t long survive legal challenge).Īs a freedom-minded conservative, I did not argue at the time that the governor and his team had no legitimate power to act during emergencies. Roy Cooper and other officials began exercising government power in ways unprecedented in modern times. RALEIGH - When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, Gov.
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