Data Efficacy
Reviewing the Data on the Efficacy of the Lockdown and Comparison of Red States versus Blue States dealing with Covid-19
This paper examines the relationship between (1) the political leadership of a U.S. state (in partisan Democrat/Republican terms) and (2) the lockdown behavior of the state and (3) the impact of COVID-19, the “novel coronavirus,” on that state. To measure that relationship, I calculate the mean average number of COVID cases, deaths, cases per million residents, and deaths per million residents for Democratic “blue states,” Republican “red states,” and states corresponding to each of several measures of lockdown. In addition, I conduct similar state-bystate analyses of cases, deaths, cases-per-million (CPM), and deaths-per-million (DPM) focused only on/among minority victims of COVID-19.
Finally, I run a series of multi-variate linear regressions, with the factor variables contained in each model detailed below, against the dependent variables of: total COVID cases, total COVID deaths, COVID CPM, COVID DPM, COVID cases among POC, COVID deaths among POC, POC CPM, and POC DPM. Overall, I find few statistically significant differences between red states and blue states in terms of performance against COVID-19,1 and essentially no evidence for the efficacy of lockdowns. While this paper is written in business-brief format, I do expect to publish or present sections of it as an academic article.
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