https://www.wsj.com/articles/news-from-the-non-lockdown-states-11592954700?fbclid=IwAR180LKwP7iB_1VtY3l_Xe71WMGAzDRm-7uLt2LXSjg03gyFh8ds4ntFQhMA new
analysis by The Sentinel, a Kansas nonprofit, compares the 42 states that shut down most of their economies with the eight that did not. The latter group includes mostly rural states with some small metropolitan areas: North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Utah. Private employment on average fell by 7.8% between May 2019 and May 2020 in these states while plunging 13.2% in the others.
Rural state economies generally rely more on "essential" services like agriculture and food production, and some industries like energy and hospitality would have shed jobs regardless of the lockdowns. Still, private job losses were higher in states that locked down like Colorado (9.5%) compared to economically similar ones that didn't like Utah (4.6%).
Yet per-capita Covid fatalities in states that stayed open were on average about 75% lower than those that locked down. One reason is that deaths in most states, regardless of whether they locked down, have been concentrated in nursing home facilities and minority communities that have higher rates of underlying health conditions and multigenerational housing.