Muristek
By BRETT DAVIS
THE CENTER SQUARE
(The Center Square) – The Washington State Department of Health issued a recent report on the next phase of COVID. The report celebrated the Evergreen State’s response to the worldwide pandemic thus far, but not everyone agrees that Washington’s locked-down, vaccine-mandated approach made much difference.
The report, titled “ForWArd: The next phase of WA’s COVID-19 Response (through 2022),” notes that Washington has the fourth lowest cumulative death rate per 100,000 people since the start of the pandemic, based on numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and takes something of a victory lap for the state’s policies.
“We all came together to support each other during trying times, following guidance for masking, social distancing and the promise of a better tomorrow through vaccinations,” the report states. “The incredible work done by public health, the healthcare system, community partners and individual Washingtonians led to our state having one of the lowest cumulative case and death rates, and highest state vaccination rates, in the country.”
After looking through the report’s data, Jason Mercier, director of the Center for Government Reform at the Washington Policy Center (WPC), remains unconvinced.
He wrote on WPC’s Olympia Watch Twitter page that he compared the 10 states listed in the Thursday report with the lowest COVID-19 death rates to mask and vaccine mandates in those states, as well as political governance.
“There doesn’t appear to be any correlation between the states in the top 10 for the fewest COVID deaths and the types or extent of mandates imposed,” he concluded in another tweet.
Mr. Mercier followed up with, “Perhaps there is something else at work other than the Governor’s belief that he alone can save lives with government-imposed mandates. Also, see John Hopkins study on lockdowns and COVID deaths.”
In a Sept. 29 interview with Mike McClanahan on TWW’s “The Impact” discussing mandates and use of emergency powers, Gov. Jay Inslee said, “There is only person in the state of Washington who has the capability to save those lives right now, and it happens to be the governor of the state of Washington.”
A study from Johns Hopkins University earlier this year concluded that lockdowns had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.
Mike Faulk, the governor’s press secretary, was not impressed.
“You should call me because I fail to see the point in responding to tweets that make claims and don’t actually provide any analysis,” he said in an email responding to The Center Square’s request for comment on Mr. Mercier’s take. “Maybe you can convince me there’s news value to this and that it isn’t just more of the same political volleyball. The ‘Johns Hopkins study’ he links to was conducted by economists. It’s a ‘working paper’ that has not been peer-reviewed, and it faces plenty of criticism from real epidemiologists and public health experts.”
In his email, Mr. Faulk included a link to a MedPage Today article highly critical of the Johns Hopkins study, claiming it “has serious flaws and is being misinterpreted,” according to experts.
“There are actual experts in public health who can tell you the truth,” Mr. Faulk concluded.
Mr. Mercier gave some ground to the governor’s office regarding the Johns Hopkins report.
“Apparently those findings are being disputed,” he said in an email to The Center Square that included a link to a USA Today piece fact-checking the study.
He added, “Original analysis on top 10 states highlighted by DOH remains though. Very different approaches by those states in the last year for similar results.”
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