Paul Krugman's Misinformation on Florida COVID Deaths Deflects Harm of Lockdowns and Ineffective COVID Restrictions

Once upon a time, there was an economist called Paul Krugman. He was a man who pursued a PhD in economics from MIT, wrote 27 books, taught economics at MIT and Princeton, and even won a Nobel Prize in 2008. Similar to Robert Reich, Paul Krugman went from being a well-respected economist who understood nuance to a de facto talking head for the political Left. His political leanings are no secret. In 2009, he wrote a book called Conscience of a Liberal. 

I am not faulting Krugman for having a certain set of political beliefs. I know my Weltanschauung and where I stand when it comes to political philosophy. I consider myself a pragmatic, consequentialist libertarian. At least I do my utmost to follow solid research methodology, read analyses from all sides of the political spectrum, and let logic and the data guide and inform my political opinions, not the other way around. Krugman makes no such attempt at objectivity. As I have pointed out before on this blog, he has manipulated statistics or conveniently left out facts to paint a one-sided, partisan picture. 

In 2000, Krugman wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about how to identify a political hack. He said that one way that you can identify a political hack is by someone who uses "surprisingly raw, transparent misrepresentation of facts." Who knew 2000 Krugman would be writing about 2022 Krugman? Here is what he had to say on Twitter about Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) this past Sunday:

Can Ron DeSantis effectively challenge Trump? I have no idea. But one thing I hope doesn't get forgotten in the horse-race coverage is DeSantis's major achievement as governor: the unnecessary death of around 20,000 Floridians 1/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 13, 2022

Krguman blames DeSantis for the death of 20,000 Floridians due to "COVID disinformation and anti-tax propaganda." On his tweet (see tweet below), he said that a population-adjusted death toll (aka a mortality rate) puts Florida way higher than California and New York. 

Adjusted for population, the Florida-equivalent death toll was

FL 59,170
CA 39,217
NY 39,551

So states that didn't have governors promoting Covid disinformation and anti-tax propaganda lost far fewer people — the equivalent of ~20K excess in FL 4/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 13, 2022

He concluded by saying "it's not about freedom. We're not talking about lockdowns and restrictions at this point, just about lifesaving shots that DeSantis deterred people from getting." I want to delve into the aforementioned comment in a moment. But first, I want to take a look at vaccination rates to see if Krugman's main gripe is legitimate. These are data that I am pulling from the CDC's Vaccination Distribution and Coverage database. I encourage you to look at the data for yourself and adjust the timelines as you would like, but first are the trends for the United States as of November 9.

  

Below are the data for the state of Florida. Yes, the numbers for 18-24 yrs and 25-49 yrs are slightly lower than the national average. Here is the catch: Not all age strata are created equal when it comes to COVID. There is wide variation of COVID mortality rates when it comes to age demographics. I pointed this out in June when I showed that children are way less likely to die from COVID than the rest of the population. Those who are over the age of 65 are at the highest risk of dying from COVID.   

If you look at COVID death data from the CDC [as of 11/9/22], you will see that 75 percent (or 800,351 out of 1,067,539) of those who died from COVID in the U.S. were age 65+. This is important considering that people 65 and over only account for 16.3 percent of the overall U.S. population (Census). An additional 18.3 percent (or 195,374) were from the ages of 50 to 64. This means that the remaining 6.7 percent of COVID deaths were for those under the age of 50. 

What you see in the above infographic is that Florida's vaccination rates for the 65+ crowd is currently at around the national average. More to the point, the graphs above show that the state of Florida vaccinated its 65+ population slightly more quickly than the national average. Rather than be derelict in his duties, DeSantis moved fast to protect the most vulnerable populations with the vaccines. 

My second issue with Krugman's so-called assessment has to do with the age factor. He is technically correct to say that the unadjusted death rate in Florida is higher than California or New York (CDC). However, it is particularly careless of Krugman to not provide age-adjusted death rates, especially with all of his economic training. Why? The purpose of using age-adjusted rates is to provide an apples-to-apples comparison when analyzing health statistics between population groups and geographic areas. This is because almost all diseases and health outcomes occur at different rates in different ages, and as already illustrated, COVID is no exception. 

Age is the single largest factor in COVID mortality. This demographic finding is nothing new. We have known since the beginning of the pandemic that the elderly and immunocompromised are going to be the hardest-hit by COVID. Data from the Kaiser Foundation show that 21 percent of Florida's population comprises of those who are 65+, which is higher than California (15.3%) or New York (17.5%). What happens when you use age-adjusted deaths rates for COVID? How does Florida rank? 

In September 2022, biology research company The Bioinformatics CRO made those very calculations by using CDC provisional death data (also see quarterly death rates here). When adjusting for age, Florida ranked #31 on the list at 292 deaths per 100,000 which is below the U.S. median of 316 deaths. This puts Florida in better shape than such blue states as New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. This does not ignore the fact that the top ten states of this list are red states, but it does help at least vindicate the Sunshine State.

I have a bigger issue with Krugman's manipulation of the story, which is that he says that "We're not talking about lockdowns and restrictions at this point." He had no problem tweeting about lockdowns during July 2020 when he tweeted that "many states, especially in the South, rushed to resume business as usual." In that same tweet, he referred to lockdowns as "annoying, but sustainable." I wonder why Krugman suddenly does not want to talk about lockdowns or restrictions. 

A comprehensive study from the National Bureau of Economic Research released in April 2022 ranked all 50 states based on COVID mortality, economic performance, and educational outcomes (Mulligan et al., 2022). One of the major findings of this paper is that there was no clear pattern in which states had high or low mortality. Another was when looking at excess deaths, Florida ranked below California. Even better was when the authors looked at the death rates when adjusted for age and metabolic health (i.e., diabetes and obesity). Once factored in, it turns out there is no correlation that showed that lockdown stringency resulted in better health outcomes. 

When using the Stringency Index from Oxford to factor in multiple restrictions (e.g., school closures, workplace closures, closing large events), the good people at the Bioinformatics CRO concluded that an age- and obesity-adjusted death rate does not correlate with the Stringency Index. In other words, we see that the more stringent states did not have better COVID-related health outcomes than the more lax states.

While this might seem shocking or revelatory for some, this is hardly news for those of you who have been following this blog throughout the pandemic. Here are some of my favorite pieces on the topic of the failure of multiple COVID restrictions:

• June 2022: Lockdowns, School Closures, and Mask Mandates Negatively Impacted Children
• April-May 2022: Unmasking Maskaholism - Why All Mask Mandates, Including the One for Public Transit, Need to Go (Part I and Part II)
• February 2022: Johns Hopkins Meta-Analysis Is the Latest in Showing Why Lockdowns Are Ineffective and Horrid
• December 2021: Fauci Is Dead Wrong About Indefinitely Needing Face Masks on Airplanes
• December 2021: Travel Bans Are Nothing More Than Harmful Public Health Theater
• June 2021: The Evidence Base Against Lockdowns Grows - Why Lockdowns Are Ineffective and Very Likely Cause Deaths
• April 2021: When "Follow the Science" During the Pandemic Meant Not Following the Science (includes scrutinizing of lockdowns, travel restrictions, cleaning surfaces, social distancing, face masks, and school closures)
• May 2020: Why We Need to Start Lifting Coronavirus Lockdowns Sooner Rather Than Later

There were some restrictions that did very little to nothing to slow down COVID, such as the mask mandates. There were other restrictions that remind us that the cure can be worse than the sickness. For example, a study from economists at Rand Corporation and the University of South California show that an increase of shelter-in-place by one week translated into excess death of 2.7 persons per 100,000 (Agrawal et al., 2021). 

With all the damning evidence against lockdowns and other COVID restrictions that were illiberally enacted, I have to hypothesize that Krugman's current reluctance to talk about lockdowns and other COVID restrictions is because in spite of his cognitive dissonance, he knows that deep down that the COVID restrictions he advocated for at the beginning of the pandemic did not work. 

Krugman would rather not be known for contributing to the most devastating public policy choices inflicted upon humankind during peacetime. Who wants to be known for being on the side that took a sledgehammer to our institutions and our way of life only to do next to nothing to stop an airborne pandemic from happening? I know I would not, and I could see why Krugman and his ilk would distance themselves from the lockdowns and other COVID restrictions.  

If history has taught me anything, it is that we should not forget our past. If we forget our past, we are doomed to repeat history. To quote Cicero, "to be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to always remain a child." We cannot undo the damage done by lockdowns and other COVID restrictions. Nevertheless, we can be sure that we remind future generations of this generation's mistakes for when the pandemic arrives because there will almost certainly be another pandemic. What lessons will we help future generations learn from this travesty? Will we let lockdown lovers like Krugman get away with writing a revisionist version of history or will we use data and facts in proper context to inform future generations of what happened between 2020 and 2022? That decision will be up to us and I hope that we impart the right lessons from this pandemic.