vaccination rate was the big factor

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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.

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.