Now that school lockdowns are over, schools are wondering — where are the students?
School absences have spiked since the pandemic. Now, over three years after lockdowns began, many students are simply not showing up for class.
Nearly 10% of K-12 students were missing from school on an average day during the 2022-2023 school year, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/briefing/covid-school-absence.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to preliminary state data reported by The New York Times.
About a quarter of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of school days — about three and a half weeks. Before COVID, only <a href="https://www.lex18.com/news/millions-of-kids-are-missing-weeks-of-school-as-attendance-tanks-across-the-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">about 15%</a> of students were chronically absent. About 6.5 million more students became chronically absent across 40 states and Washington, D.C., according to <a href="https://osf.io/bfg3p/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">absenteeism data</a> from Thomas Dee, a Stanford economist.
Black, Latino, and low-income students were more likely to be absent. Notably in some cases, absenteeism has spiked more in some blue areas where schools were on lockdown for longer during the pandemic, according to Dee&#8217;s data as well as remote schooling enrollment <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/briefing/covid-school-absence.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from Thomas Kane, a Harvard economist.
In New Mexico, Alaska, and Arizona, where school lockdowns were longer, absenteeism rates rose by more than 20 percentage points between 2019 and 2022. California and Oregon, both of which had prolonged school lockdowns, both saw their absenteeism rates rise more than 15 percentage points between those years. Washington, D.C, which also had prolonged lockdowns, had elevated levels of absenteeism as well.
Meanwhile, states like Arkansas, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, which went back to in-person learning more quickly, all saw absenteeism rise by below 10 percentage points.
Some analysts <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/briefing/covid-school-absence.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">say</a> one factor could be that thanks to school lockdowns, attendance now feels more optional.
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“For almost two years, we told families that school can look different and that schoolwork could be accomplished in times outside of the traditional 8-to-3 day,” <a href="https://www.lex18.com/news/millions-of-kids-are-missing-weeks-of-school-as-attendance-tanks-across-the-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Elmer Roldan, who runs a school dropout prevention group in Los Angeles.
“Families got used to that,” he said.
Another issue is parents keeping their anxious children home from school, a decision psychologists say is understandably tempting for parents but can cause more anxiety down the road.
&#8220;The most fundamental thing for adults to understand is that avoidance feeds anxiety,&#8221; Lisa Damour, a psychologist and the author of “The Emotional Lives of Teenagers,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/briefing/covid-school-absence.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The New York Times.
“When any of us are fearful, our instinct is to avoid. But the problem with giving in to that anxiety is that avoidance is highly reinforcing,” she said.
Meanwhile, students are still battling significant learning loss caused by months of remote schooling. The average math and reading test scores for 13-year-olds <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-reading-and-math-scores-for-13-year-olds-declined-to-lowest-level-in-decades-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plummeted</a> to the lowest levels in decades, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) officials <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in June.
In some cases, students may actually be doing worse than before COVID.
Last month, a study <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kids-progressing-even-slower-in-reading-math-now-than-before-pandemic-new-study-shows" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showed</a> that fourth through eighth-grade students made even slower progress in reading and math last year than before the pandemic, dashing hopes that kids would learn faster to make up for learning loss during COVID. At the same time, college students who were in high school during remote learning are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/many-college-students-stuck-at-9th-grade-math-level-professors-blame-pandemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arriving</a> on campus unprepared. Many are struggling with basic math and have had to go back and learn the basics.
Some families also opted to pull their children out of public school for good, opting instead for charter, private, and parish schools or homeschooling. Public school enrollment numbers dropped precipitously after the pandemic began. Public schools lost 1.4 million students between fall 2019 and fall 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cga/public-school-enrollment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Meanwhile, homeschooling rose by 30% between the school year that began in 2019 and the one that began in 2021, a study from the Urban Institute <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/homeschool-enrollment-rose-30-in-2021-2022-study.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showed</a>.

Hollywood High School Students And Teachers Prepare For Coming School Year

Schools See Spike In Student Absences Even Though Lockdowns Are Over

Schools See Spike In Student Absences, Even Though Lockdowns Are Over

Children

COVID

Education

Lockdowns

Pandemic

Public Schools

School Lockdowns

U.S.

A liberal college town announced that it would pay $300,000 to a group of Christians in Idaho who were arrested for holding an outdoor church service without wearing masks during the pandemic.
The city of Moscow, Idaho — home to the University of Idaho — <a href="https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/idaho-city-announces-300k-payment-to-people-who-were-arrested-during-religious-gathering/article_9c06f542-2736-11ee-bcdc-cf88632217a8.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the settlement in the churchgoers&#8217; civil lawsuit last week.
Three churchgoers with Christ Church sued the city after they were arrested in September 2020 at an outdoor &#8220;psalm sing&#8221; with their church outside Moscow City Hall. The singing protest lasted about 20 minutes. Gabriel Rench and Sean and Rachel Bohnet filed the suit in March 2021, alleging that their First and Fourth Amendments rights were violated.
Footage of the arrests went viral on social media and showed police officers taking Rench&#8217;s hymnal away from him before handcuffing him and taking him and the two other people to the county jail. The three were detained at the jail for several hours.
Then-president Donald Trump <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/10/07/hymn-singers-arrested-idaho-trump-tweet-democrats-doug-wilson-christ-church/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">condemned</a> the arrests at the time, tweeting that Democrats want to shut churches down &#8220;permanently.&#8221;
The three were charged with violating the city&#8217;s public health emergency ordinance, but a judge dismissed the city&#8217;s case against them.
A federal judge later denied the city&#8217;s request to dismiss the lawsuit from the three people arrested, noting that the city&#8217;s pandemic ordinance had an exception for activities protected by the Idaho and U.S. constitutions, such as religious services. The judge said the three never should have been arrested in the first place.
&#8220;Somehow, every single City official involved overlooked the exclusionary language [of constitutionally protected behavior] in the Ordinance,&#8221; the judge wrote.
Rench was a candidate for Latah County Commission when he was arrested.
&#8220;It&#8217;s actually the city of Moscow that was defying the law,&#8221; Rench said, according to Fox News. &#8220;I was obeying the law. The political system doesn&#8217;t want to give away their power, and they think if they admit they&#8217;re wrong, they look at that as like they&#8217;re losing their political power.&#8221;
He said he believes the government has started to target Christians more.
&#8220;I think it&#8217;s no secret that portions of our government and political groups are now starting to target Christians in a way that has never really happened in America or Canada,&#8221; Rench told Fox News.
&#8220;I&#8217;m in a conservative state, but I live in a liberal town, and the liberals had no problem arresting me for practicing my religious rights and my Constitutional rights,&#8221; he said.
Christ Church is a congregation of about 1,000 people and part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.
The city said its liability insurance provider &#8220;determined that a financial settlement in the case was the best course of action to dispose of the suit and avoid a protracted litigation proceeding.&#8221;
Under the terms of the settlement agreement, the liability insurance provider &#8220;will pay a total settlement amount of $300,000 and all claims against the City and the named City employees will be dismissed with prejudice along with a release of all liability,&#8221; the city <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/christians-arrested-maskless-outdoor-church-service-get-payout-liberal-college-town" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a press release.
The city also said the settlement &#8220;provides closure of a matter related to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and the City’s efforts to protect the public during an exceptionally trying time.&#8221;

TOPSHOT-FRANCE-HEALTH-VIRUS-CHINA

Christians Arrested For Maskless Outdoor Church Service To Get $300,000 From Liberal College Town

Health

Religion

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki Holds News Briefing At White House

Here Are The COVID Authoritarians Who Will Soon Walk The Halls Of America’s Elite Universities

Here Are The COVID Authoritarians Who Will Soon Walk The Halls Of America's Elite Universities

Anthony Fauci

Georgetown University

Harvard

Jacinda Ardern

Lori Lightfoot

New Zealand

Readers Pass

The share of the American <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/jobs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">workforce</a> composed of foreign-born workers rose to record levels last year, a phenomenon which comes as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/immigration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">immigration</a> surges in the wake of worldwide <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lockdowns</a> and as the nation’s <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">economy</a> grapples with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/labor-shortage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">labor shortages</a>.
Workers born in other nations comprised 18.1% of the workforce in 2022, according to <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/forbrn.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, marking an increase from 17.4% in 2021. Hispanics account for nearly half of the foreign-born labor force, while Asians account for one-quarter of the foreign-born labor force. Average weekly earnings for foreign-born workers were $945 last year, while weekly earnings for their native-born counterparts were $1,087.
Native-born workers were more likely than foreign-born workers to hold positions in management, professional, and sales occupations, while the latter were more likely to work in service, natural resources, construction, logistics, and maintenance. Labor force participation among native-born males was 66.0% compared to 77.4% for foreign-born men.
The heightened level of foreign-born workers as a share of the overall workforce occurs as the United States and other nations reverse public health mandates that slowed immigration and temporary residency. One <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/01/after-declining-early-in-the-covid-19-outbreak-immigrant-naturalizations-in-the-u-s-are-rising-again/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from Pew Research Center found that there has been a rise in “the number of immigrants receiving green cards as new lawful permanent residents, as well as a partial rebound in arrivals by foreign students, tourists, and other lawful temporary migrants.”
Illegal immigration has meanwhile <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-heads-to-beach-after-shattering-all-time-record-with-83000-illegal-aliens-storming-border-in-1-week" target="_blank" rel="noopener">soared</a> to record levels over the past two years: as many as 5.5 million migrants have crossed into the United States under the Biden administration, according to <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fair-analysis-5-5-million-illegal-aliens-have-crossed-our-borders-since-biden-took-officehow-is-secretary-mayorkas-still-employed-301658734.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Critics of immigration policies forwarded by the White House have asserted that lackluster emphasis on securing the border and increased resources for migrants who enter the country have worsened the crisis.
Several cities and at least one state <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/leading-republicans-decry-biden-border-crisis-as-title-42-ends" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a> emergencies this month as officials prepare for the conclusion of Title 42, a statute which permitted authorities to quickly turn away migrants at the southern border on public health grounds. Large groups of illegal immigrants have been recorded amassing at the border and seeking to enter the country between ports of entry.
The labor market over the past three years has widely been considered a bright spot in an otherwise dismal economic landscape marked by record inflation and persistent supply chain bottlenecks. Low labor force participation across the economy, on the other hand, has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/americans-continue-to-opt-out-of-the-workforce" target="_blank" rel="noopener">worsened</a> both trends as businesses raise wages to fill their payrolls and attract or retain more workers. Excess retirements amid the lockdown-induced recession have been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-reserve-chair-jerome-powell-discusses-future-slowdown-of-rate-hikes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">identified</a> as a factor contributing to decreased labor force participation.
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There were 30.0 million foreign-born workers in the United States as of last month, according to <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073395" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, eclipsing the 27.7 million workers counted in the month before the lockdowns and significantly surpassing 22.0 million workers three years ago. There were meanwhile 131.1 million native-born workers last month, according to more <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02073413" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a>, a figure which remains below levels recorded before the recession.
Foreign-born workers composed some 15.0% of the workforce in 2005, according to more <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/forbrn_04142006.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Restaurant

Foreign-Born Workers Now Make Up Nearly One-Fifth Of American Workforce

Foreign-Born Adults Now Make Up Almost One-Fifth Of American Workforce

Economy

Immigration

Jobs

Unemployment

Membership in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/southern-baptists" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Southern Baptist Convention</a> witnessed the largest single-year decline in at least a century as the nation reels from the aftermath of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lockdown</a> mandates and pastors become concerned about the denomination’s theologically <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/woke" target="_blank" rel="noopener">liberal</a> drift.
The nation’s largest Protestant denomination saw a decline from 13.7 million members in 2021 to 13.2 million members in 2022, a decrease of more than 3% which continues the trajectory seen over the last three years, according to <a href="https://research.lifeway.com/2023/05/09/southern-baptists-decline-in-membership-grow-in-attendance-baptisms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> released by Lifeway Research, a provider of church business services for the Southern Baptist Convention.
“Much of the downward movement we are seeing in membership reflects people who stopped participating in an individual congregation years ago and the record keeping is finally catching up,” Lifeway Research Executive Director Scott McConnell said in a statement. “Membership totals for a congregation immediately reflect additions as well as subtractions due to death or someone removing themselves from membership. But many congregations are slow to remove others who no longer are participating.”
Even as the number of baptisms and the amount of giving increased from the previous year, the Southern Baptist Convention is now composed of 416 fewer churches between 2021 and 2022. Unlike other more centralized denominations, the Southern Baptist Convention is a voluntary association of autonomous churches which fund seminaries, missionary efforts, and publications as they <a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">adhere</a> to the Baptist Faith and Message statement of doctrinal convictions.
Lockdowns contributed to a broader decline of religiosity in the United States as many congregants never <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wheat-and-chaff-a-three-year-post-mortem-on-evangelical-church-attendance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">returned</a> to traditional worship services. Church attendance has fallen to 85% of pre-lockdown levels in Protestant denominations even after nearly every church in the country resumed normal operations, according to another <a href="https://research.lifeway.com/2022/11/08/churches-are-open-but-still-recovering-from-pandemic-attendance-losses/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> from Lifeway Research.
Those who continued to profess Christianity became increasingly theologically liberal in their beliefs: a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/from-the-inspiration-of-scripture-to-gender-identity-evangelicalism-sees-a-massive-leftward-shift" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> from Ligonier Ministries found that the share of self-identified evangelicals who believe “gender identity is a matter of choice” rose from 22% to 37% between 2020 and 2022, while the share who believe “the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual behavior doesn’t apply today” more than doubled from 11% to 28% over the same time horizon.
Record decline in Southern Baptist Convention membership occurs as hundreds of pastors throughout the country notice the liberal direction of the denomination. The trend is perhaps most palpable at the institutional level: Southern Baptist Convention President Bart Barber and other leaders have faced <a href="https://americanreformer.org/2023/04/mr-smith-goes-to-the-convention/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticism</a> for neglecting to rebuke the dozens of churches which have <a href="https://gk2611.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Churches-with-Female-Pastors-from-churches.sbc_.net_-2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">installed</a> female pastors, a practice denounced in the Baptist Faith and Message.
Officials at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the denomination’s public policy arm, meanwhile <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/southern-baptist-ethics-arm-doubles-down-on-support-for-tennessee-red-flag-law-despite-pushback" target="_blank" rel="noopener">endorsed</a> a red flag law in Tennessee months after they <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-life-lobbying-groups-issue-letter-against-charging-women-with-crimes-for-seeking-abortions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opposed</a> a bill in Louisiana that would have criminalized abortion for all parties involved, even though Southern Baptists passed a <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-abolishing-abortion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resolution</a> affirming that “the murder of preborn children is a crime against humanity that must be punished equally under the law” the previous summer. Former Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission President Russell Moore said three years ago that ministers should <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-the-federal-government-used-evangelical-leaders-to-spread-covid-propaganda-to-churches" target="_blank" rel="noopener">persuade</a> church members to accept vaccination and wear face masks.
The Daily Wire reviewed several emails from concerned former Southern Baptist Convention pastors sent to Mike Law, a minister at Arlington Baptist Church in Virginia, who had contacted thousands of pastors to garner support for his <a href="https://sbcamendment.org/home-2/why-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">efforts</a> to address the female pastor phenomenon. Many of the churches represented by the pastors have left the denomination in recent months.
“You can take our church off your mailing list,” one pastor replied. “We do not support the socialist movement that has infiltrated the convention and are no longer a member.”
“Our congregation is no longer in the SBC because of their liberal stances on this and their support in fighting an abolition bill in Louisiana,” another minister said. “I pray along with you that the SBC leadership would be convicted by your efforts and the many churches like us who are stepping away,” added a third pastor.
“We truly appreciate your efforts to uphold the Bible. I’m just letting you know that our church voted to leave the SBC this past summer,” commented a fourth. “We felt that this issue was just one that should have been addressed in 2022. There were other issues, so we chose to become non-denominational and break from the SBC.”
Controversy over the ordination of women in the Southern Baptist Convention emerged last year as Rick Warren, the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in California, selected a husband and wife team to replace him at the megachurch after his retirement, drawing rebukes from veteran conservative ministers. The congregation was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/southern-baptists-disfellowship-saddleback-church-over-female-pastor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">disfellowshipped</a> from the denomination earlier this year, a move which Warren will be permitted to appeal next month.

Church Steeple

SBC Sees Largest One-Year Membership Decline In A Century, Churches Leave Due To Liberal Drift

SBC Witnesses Largest Single-Year Membership Decline In A Century, Pastors Grow Concerned Over Liberal Drift

Christianity

Southern Baptists

Wokeness

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/air-travel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">airline</a> industry in the United States will see a worsening pilot <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/jobs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shortage</a> in the coming years as airmen retire and insufficient numbers of trainees are available to replace them, experts told members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday.
Commercial pilots were encouraged by their employers to retire as worldwide <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lockdowns</a> and public health mandates caused demand for air travel to plummet in the spring of 2020, worsening a previous trend toward a lack of available pilots. Elevated <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/inflation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prices</a> for airline tickets and a rapid return in travel demand are now prompting lawmakers to consider the problem.
Regional Airline Association CEO Faye Malarkey Black <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/PW/PW05/20230419/115681/HHRG-118-PW05-Wstate-BlackF-20230419.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that the airline sector expects another “tsunami of pilot retirements” in the coming years. More than 50% of current commercial pilots will be forced to retire within the next 15 years because of Federal Aviation Administration rules mandating that pilots exit their positions once they reach 65 years of age, while only 8% of pilots are below 30 years of age because of the high cost of flight education.
One <a href="https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2021/mar/after-covid-19-aviation-faces-a-pilot-shortage.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from consulting group Oliver Wyman predicts that there will exist a shortage of 60,000 pilots by the end of the decade. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in an earnings <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4570709-united-airlines-holdings-inc-ual-q4-2022-earnings-call-transcript" target="_blank" rel="noopener">call</a> earlier this year that the firm, which will hire 8,000 pilots this year alongside Delta, Southwest, and American, believes that “pilots are and will remain a significant constraint on capacity.”
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO), a general aviation pilot, said in his <a href="https://transportation.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=406262" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opening remarks</a> that “pilot training has remained static over the years.” He added that another current rule from the Federal Aviation Administration requiring pilots to have completed 1,500 hours of flight experience before flying a commercial airliner should be reconsidered because “the number of flight hours you have are not a reflection of what kind of pilot you are,” as evidenced by a study from the agency.
“In our system, pilots with around 250 hours, typically very structured hours, come out of flight school and are left to bridge the gap to 1,500 hours,” Graves said. “Only a few of those hours have any kind of requirements associated with them, and even then, they can almost all be logged on sunny, clear days. I’m not convinced that taking kids out of flight school and telling them to tow banners, train students, or bore holes in the sky while racking up debt produces the best pilots.”
FlightSafety International CEO Brad Thress <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/PW/PW05/20230419/115681/HHRG-118-PW05-Wstate-ThressB-20230419.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> lawmakers that simulators can provide pilots with experience while saving costs and offering a wider array of flight scenarios. “Allowing credit for simulator training for each rating on the ladder to becoming a professional pilot would make high-quality simulator experience an implicit part of the development of commercial pilots,” he contended. “Increasing the maximum amount of credit for simulator training to a larger portion of a pilot’s flight experience would have a significant positive impact on the safety of our industry.”
Pilot shortages and elevated fuel expenses have contributed to rising airfare in the United States: ticket prices have increased nearly 18% year-over-year, according to <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SETG01" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Proposals from Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) would <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lawmakers-introduce-bill-with-key-reform-to-stop-flight-cancellations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increase</a> the commercial pilot retirement age from 65 to 67 to ease staffing pressures, a move which Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg opposes. “The answer is not to keep the Baby Boomer generation in the cockpit indefinitely,” he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/buttigieg-slams-airlines-for-flight-cancellations-but-rejects-key-reform" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> last summer. “The answer is to make sure we have as many and as good pilots ready to take their place, to have a stronger pipeline.”

United

A ‘Tsunami’ Of Commercial Pilot Retirements Is Coming, Experts Warn Congress

A 'Tsunami' Of Commercial Pilot Retirements Is Coming

Air Travel

Inflation

Millions of people left major cities in the United States between 2020 and 2022, years dominated by government <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lockdown</a> policies and elevated <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/crime" target="_blank" rel="noopener">crime</a> rates, according to an <a href="https://eig.org/2022-county-population-trends/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> released last week by the Economic Innovation Group.
Domestic outmigration from large urban counties reached 1.2 million residents in 2021 and 861,000 residents in 2022, implying that more than two million people moved from large cities in recent years. The trend contributed to a population surge in the suburbs and exurbs, which saw 486,000 and 822,000 new residents, respectively, between 2020 and 2022.
Increased rates of immigration from outside of the United States, however, added 507,000 residents to large cities in 2022, an increase from 186,000 residents in 2021 as worldwide travel restrictions eased. “Though large urban counties have not yet rebounded from large population outflows experienced in 2020 and 2021, they did nearly halt overall population loss in 2022, buoyed by more normal rates of international migration,” the analysts summarized.
Individuals who took advantage of remote work policies appear to have accelerated the domestic migration phenomena even as constrained housing markets likely slowed the trends.
“We find work-from-home related fundamentals remained important drivers of population shifts in 2022 but less than they were in 2021. One reason may be that the shift to remote work early in the pandemic was a one-time shock and this led to a one-time, temporary change in migration patterns, which are now converging towards normal,” the analysts said. “Alternatively, remote work may have an impact on migration patterns that will take a longer time to unfold. In this case, the weaker relationship with work-from-home fundamentals may be due to housing supply becoming a more binding constraint to work-from-home-driven population shifts.”
Lockdown mandates caused low labor force participation and supply chain bottlenecks, worsening already lackluster levels of new construction for residential real estate. Median home sale prices increased from $322,600 in the second quarter of 2020 to $467,700 in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Data released by the Census Bureau at the end of last month <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-are-the-fastest-growing-and-fastest-shrinking-counties-in-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">demonstrate</a> that counties home to major cities in California, Illinois, and New York witnessed the nation’s most stark numeric population decline last year, while those home to major cities in Arizona, Texas, and Florida saw the largest numeric population growth. Los Angeles County, California, lost more residents than any other county in the United States as the population fell by 91,000 between July 2021 and July 2022. Cook County, Illinois, whose county seat is Chicago, saw its population decrease by 68,000 over the same time horizon.
Population trends correspond with the cities and states which enforced aggressive lockdown mandates. California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom only <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gov-newsom-officially-ends-covid-state-of-emergency-after-three-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reversed</a> the state of emergency established amid the spread of COVID as late as February 2023, while Chicago Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoots-heavy-hand-vaccine-free-your-time-is-up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">informed</a> unvaccinated residents as late as December 2021 that their “time is up” and said her health mandates were “inconvenient by design.”
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Elevated violent crime and property crime rates in American cities have contributed to an exodus of businesses and residents. The phenomenon has continued into 2023: Walmart announced this week that the firm would <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walmart-closes-four-stores-in-chicago-amid-elevated-crime-rates" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shutter</a> four stores in Chicago, while Whole Foods unveiled the forthcoming <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/san-franciscos-flagship-whole-foods-closes-after-only-one-year-due-to-high-crime-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">closure</a> of the organic grocer’s flagship location in San Francisco.

Oakland, California

Two Million People Bolted From America’s Major Cities Since The Lockdowns

Millions Of People Bolted From America's Large Cities Between 2020 And 2022

Census Bureau

Crime

General

Population

Residents of <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/california" target="_blank" rel="noopener">California</a> witnessed the lowest personal income growth in the nation last year as the state recovered from aggressive <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lockdowns</a> and an exodus of citizens and <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/business" target="_blank" rel="noopener">businesses</a>.
California saw net earnings, defined as income from a place of work minus welfare, increase 5.0% between 2021 and 2022 compared to the national average of 8.0%, according to <a href="https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2023-03/stgdppi4q22-a2022.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> released last week by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Other states that severely trailed the national average included Maryland, which saw a 5.5% increase, and New Hampshire, which saw a 6.0% increase.
Net earnings meanwhile saw a 12.5% increase in Idaho, an 11.5% increase in Texas, a 10.8% increase in Nevada, and a 10.7% increase in both Florida and Arkansas.
The earnings data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis largely corresponds with patterns established over the past three years related to the lockdown regimes enacted by state and local officials: while states in the northeastern and western United States continued to shutter businesses well after COVID started to spread through the nation, states in the southern and midwestern United States reversed their mandates far more quickly.
Texas, Arizona, Idaho, and Utah, all of which boasted some of the strongest net earnings increases in the nation last year, were also among the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/four-red-states-recover-all-pre-recession-jobs-as-many-blue-states-are-still-lagging-behind" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first</a> to see full labor market recovery following COVID and the lockdown-induced recession. Statewide increases in gross domestic product, which were highest in Idaho at 4.9%, followed a similar pattern as western and northeastern states fell behind their counterparts.
The Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University, found in a <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/california-business-exits-soared-2021-and-there-no-end-sight" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> that businesses departed from California twice as fast in 2021 compared to the rate in 2020 and 2019, as well as three times as fast as the rate in 2018. Texas is the most popular state for relocations, while prominent California employers such as Apple, Wells Fargo, and Disney opted to build new office spaces in Texas and Florida.
“California state and local economic policies have raised business costs to levels that are so high businesses are choosing to leave behind the many economic benefits of being in California and move to states with better business climates featuring much less regulation, much lower taxes, and lower living costs,” the Hoover Institution noted. “Our head count of headquarters departures is almost certainly far too low, since most business relocations are not reported by the media, and relatively few relocations require filing state compliance reports that would trigger documentation of the exit.”
With an effective tax rate of 13.5%, California is among the most heavily taxed states in the country, according to an <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/publications/state-local-tax-burden-rankings/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from the Tax Foundation. The state has more severe business tax burdens than all but two other states, according to another <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/2023-state-business-tax-climate-index/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from the organization.
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Population trends correspond with the economic climates of lockdown states. California <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-lost-more-residents-than-any-other-state-in-2022-u-s-census-bureau" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lost</a> more residents than any other state last year, marking the third consecutive year in which the state’s population decreased. Counties in California, Illinois, and New York, especially those with major cities, also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-are-the-fastest-growing-and-fastest-shrinking-counties-in-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saw</a> the largest numeric population declines.
California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom only <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gov-newsom-officially-ends-covid-state-of-emergency-after-three-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reversed</a> the state of emergency established amid the spread of COVID two months ago. Beyond their effects on businesses, critics of the aggressive lockdowns in California noted their impact on churches, schools, and other institutions.

California Gov. Newsom And West Coast Leaders Sign Climate Agreement

California Saw Worst Personal Income Growth In The Nation Last Year

California Sees Worst Personal Income Growth In The Nation

Business

California

The government-imposed COVID lockdowns wreaked havoc on America&#8217;s youth emotionally, mentally, and educationally. Now, new data shows that child gun-related fatalities and assaults skyrocketed in four major liberal cities from March 2020 to December 2021.
New data from Boston University <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/gun-violence-children-covid-19-jama-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that during the first two years of the pandemic, fatal and non-fatal gun assaults for minors increased from a rate of 30 per 100,000 to about 62 per 100,000 during the pandemic in Philadelphia alone. Meanwhile, the rates in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles also increased.
Black children in particular bore the brunt of these tragedies. Per <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/gun-violence-children-covid-19-jama-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the study</a>, black children were 100 times more likely than white children to be shot during this time. Based on the data, Philadelphia’s gun violence increased at a higher rate than its counterparts, PBS also <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/gun-violence-children-covid-19-jama-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.  The authors of this study also did not include fatal shootings in Chicago, so the actual fatality rate is presumably much higher than the limited findings show.
This new information also comes after numerous studies showed other damaging consequences of the pandemic on children.
For example, in December, Stanford University published a <a href="https://www.bpsgos.org/article/S2667-1743(22)00142-2/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> showing that teenagers’ brains were physically altered and aged at an accelerated rate during the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID lockdowns</a>.
Researchers studied the brains of 163 adolescents in the San Francisco Bay Area who were already a part of a more intensive study “assessing the effects of early life stress on psychobiology across puberty.”
The study found that those 16-year-olds had brains that appeared “several years” older than 16-year-olds who were assessed before pandemic restrictions began. Those individuals also had more severe mental health problems.
Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/blue-vs-red-2022-test-scores-show-devastating-toll-of-school-shutdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">other reports</a> indicate that children in red states, who were more likely to have less time away from in-person instruction, are doing much better academically than their blue state counterparts, who were more likely to have online schooling during the pandemic.
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Many conservatives warned that such lockdowns would have devastating effects on American children even in early spring 2020. They were demonized for not &#8220;caring&#8221; about the youth.
Now, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/data-review/risk.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claims</a> that &#8220;although children account for ~23% of the US population, they have accounted for ~0.1% of reported COVID-19 deaths.&#8221;
Based on ample evidence, can any leftist with a straight face honestly say that the &#8220;cure&#8221; — the lockdowns — really worse than the disease for kids?
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Flyers in support of the Chicago Teachers Union in front of a school closed after classes were canceled in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 10, 2022. Chicago Public Schools have been closed since Jan. 5 after Chicago teachers voted to shift back to remote learning, demanding that the district put in place more stringent protections amid a Covid-19 surge driven by the omicron variant.

Latest Evidence Lockdowns Were A Disaster: Child Shootings Skyrocketed In Four Liberal Cities

Chicago

Los Angeles

New York

Philadelphia

Shooting

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/united-kingdom" target="_blank" rel="noopener">British</a> Health Minister Matt Hancock wanted to “frighten the pants” off the nation to scare residents into compliance with a sweeping COVID <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lockdown</a> regime, according to more than 100,000 leaked messages among senior officials in the United Kingdom.
Former British Prime Minister <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/boris-johnson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Boris Johnson</a> had vowed that citizens would be able to reunite with their loved ones during the Christmas season of 2020, leading to concerns among officials that the administration would receive backlash over continued lockdowns. Hancock, a fellow member of the Conservative Party, and Damon Poole, his media adviser, expressed frustration that complication with Brexit, the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, was “taking the top line” in the news and distracting from the danger of the virus.
The officials agreed to declare a new strain of COVID called Alpha or Kent, according to a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/04/project-fear-covid-lockdown-files-matt-hancock-whatsapp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from The Telegraph. Isabel Oakeshott, a journalist who assisted Hancock with writing his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Diaries-inside-Britains-against-ebook/dp/B0BBSVDX4M/ref=sr_1_1?crid=6IU6JDFSTYDF&amp;keywords=pandemic+diaries&amp;qid=1678201046&amp;s=digital-text&amp;sprefix=pandemic+diarie%2Cdigital-text%2C118&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memoir</a> about the response to the pandemic, had leaked the communications to the outlet.
“Rather than doing too much forward signaling, we can roll pitch with the new strain,” Poole suggested on December 13, 2020. “We frighten the pants [off] everyone with the new strain,” Hancock replied, leading Poole to concur that the move “will get proper [behavior] change.”
Hancock then asked when they should “deploy the new variant.” Poole said that “we need to be more cautious” to avoid implicating schools in subsequent lockdowns.
As with many other nations, lockdowns and other public health mandates severely rocked the economy and societal well-being of the United Kingdom. Beyond a rapid <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/articles/gdpandeventsinhistoryhowthecovid19pandemicshockedtheukeconomy/2022-05-24" target="_blank" rel="noopener">collapse</a> in gross domestic product that immediately followed the lockdowns in the spring of 2020, inflation in the United Kingdom remains persistently high at 8.8% year-over-year due to supply chain disruptions, according to <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices#:~:text=Consumer%20price%20inflation%2C%20UK%3A%20January%202023&amp;text=The%20Consumer%20Prices%20Index%20including,from%209.2%25%20in%20December%202022." target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Office of National Statistics.
Johnson and other officials started to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/boris-johnson-announces-uk-is-near-end-of-lockdowns-mask-wearing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reverse</a> mask mandates and lockdowns as late as the summer of 2021. Conservative members of Parliament had nevertheless already grown skeptical of the mandates and balked at a plan to implement regional tiered lockdowns in December 2020. Hancock and Allan Nixon, a parliamentary adviser for the British Department of Health, sought to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/06/secret-spreadsheet-targeted-mps-critical-lockdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">whip</a> votes in support of the tiered system, including the blockage of projects in the constituencies represented by noncompliant lawmakers.
One of those projects was a new center for children with learning disabilities in Bury, Greater Manchester, an area represented by Conservative lawmaker James Daly. Nixon <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/06/matt-hancocks-plan-block-funding-disabled-children-mp-opposed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suggested</a> that whips could “call him up” and inform him that the initiative would be “off the table if he rebels.”
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“These guys’ re-election hinges on us in a lot of instances, and we know what they want. We should seriously consider using it,” Nixon added. “Yes 100%,” Hancock replied.
Hancock also <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/05/matt-hancock-rejected-covid-self-isolation-advice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rejected</a> counsel from British Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty in November 2020 to replace the mandatory two-week COVID quarantine policy for individuals who tested positive for COVID and their contacts with five days of testing because the move would “imply we’ve been getting it wrong.” Hancock complained on November 17, 2020, that the new policy would seem like a “massive loosening,” even though Whitty informed him that models suggested five days of testing would be “pretty well as good.”
Between the day the message was sent and August 16, 2021, when exemptions from self-isolation were unveiled, some eight million people were marked as contacts of positive cases and told to quarantine. More than 20 million people had been told to self-isolate before the policy was entirely dropped in February 2022.
More messages <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/06/consultants-paid-total-1m-day-work-nhs-test-trace-leaks-reveal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">indicate</a> that external consultants were paid as much as £1 million, or $1.2 million, each day for more than one year to support an ailing Test and Trace system from the National Health Service. Hancock special adviser Emma Dean had been “nagging” the National Health Service about the runaway expenditures since November 2020, although the agency only announced that the Test and Trace initiative would be run with “an absolute minimum” of outside consultants as late as July 2022.
Hancock contended last week that there was “absolutely no public interest case” for the leak of his messages by Oakeshott, according to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/02/matt-hancock-calls-isabel-oakeshott-whatsapp-messages-leak-massive-betrayal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from The Guardian. “I am also sorry for the impact on the very many people, political colleagues, civil servants and friends, who worked hard with me to get through the pandemic and save lives,” he continued.
“What a ridiculous defense,” Oakeshott responded. “For someone who’s as intelligent as Matt Hancock to issue a statement saying there is no public interest in these revelations is patently absurd. And he knows that very well.”

Guests Arrive At BBC For Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

British Lockdown Official Wanted To ‘Frighten The Pants’ Off Nation And Asked When To ‘Deploy The New Variant,’ Leaked Messages Show

British Lockdown Official Wanted To 'Frighten The Pants' Off Nation

COVID-19

United Kingdom

World

Remember when social media platforms forbade anyone from even suggesting that the COVID virus may have leaked from a lab in China that was studying coronaviruses?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
But that was way back then. Now, much of the COVID narrative is falling apart — new studies have suggested that masks don&#8217;t work, lockdowns were ineffectual, the vaccine is now mostly ineffective, and the U.S. Energy Department says that it&#8217;s likely the Wuhan lab was the source of the virus.
One person who&#8217;s been following the whole saga is Bill Maher, host of HBO&#8217;s &#8220;Real Time.&#8221;
&#8220;I feel like the people who were the dissenters are looking pretty good. I was one of them,&#8221; Maher said during a panel discussion on his show Friday night. &#8220;I remember getting a lot of s*** from a lot of places.&#8221;
A guest on the show, comedian and Rumble host Russell Brand, jumped in, saying dissent &#8220;is a great duty around all topics&#8221; as he criticized those who are &#8220;too desperate to shut down a conversation.&#8221; That, he said, actually results in the &#8220;ironic&#8221; rejection of science and inquiry.
&#8220;The problem I feel that we had is that only experimentation was taking place that was beneficial to certain interests,&#8221; Brand said. &#8220;Only arguments were being advanced that were beneficial to certain interests. Only regulations were being imposed that were beneficial to certain interests.&#8221;
&#8220;The Wuhan lab leak theory being just one example — [top COVID official Dr. Anthony] Fauci himself was seriously considering that this was a likely origin for the virus,&#8221; the actor said.
&#8220;How could it not be a possibility?&#8221; Maher said incredulously. &#8220;It&#8217;s a lab in Wuhan where the virus started that studied the virus and was doing gain of function research on the virus. How could it not be?!&#8221;
Another guest on the show, liberal MSNBC analyst John Heilemann toed the party line, blaming former President Donald Trump for &#8220;politicizing&#8221; the issue and putting the lab-leak theory in doubt.
&#8220;If you go back to that time, why do people seize on the notion that they&#8217;ll reject the lab-leak theory? Because like everything else in COVID, Donald Trump politicized it from day one,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;His thing in that first two weeks was &#8216;kung flu.&#8217; And it was not just that it started in a lab, but then that the Chinese had released it on the world, that it was a bioweapon. This wasn&#8217;t a leak. It was just not like there was an accident in the lab. The notion that was put forward by the administration in some case was there was political interest to make China the villain,&#8221; Heilemann said.
But Maher pushed back. &#8220;So everybody else has to take his bait like that and double down on stupid?&#8221; he said.
Brand piled on, saying it wasn&#8217;t just Trump who politicized the virus.
&#8220;It seems that it&#8217;s not solely the responsibility of Donald Trump that this issue has become politicized. When we take the issue of natural immunity, the efficacy of masks, it&#8217;s difficult not to posit that perhaps increasingly a centralized authority becomes subject to inquiry that has never before face to because of the advancement of technology, because of our media ability to communicate, they are doubling down on authoritarianism,&#8221; Brand said.
Maher&#8217;s criticism follows that of Jon Stewart, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who once hosted &#8220;The Daily Show.&#8221; He was roundly ripped by fellow liberals when he vehemently (and in a quite funny way) declared in June 2021 that the COVID virus emerged from a lab in Wuhan, China.
He felt vindicated when the U.S. Energy Department said this week the virus likely emerged from the lab.
&#8220;The larger problem with all of this is the inability to discuss things that are within the realm of possibility without falling into absolutes and litmus-testing each other for our political allegiances as it arose from that,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;My bigger problem with that was, I thought it was a pretty good bit that expressed kind of how I felt, and the two things that came out of it were, I’m racist against Asian people, and how dare I align myself with the alt-right,&#8221; Stewart said.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

Celebrity Sightings In Los Angeles – January 18, 2017

COVID ‘Dissenters Are Looking Pretty Good,’ Bill Maher Says

COVID 'Dissenters Are Looking Pretty Good,' Bill Maher Says

Bill Maher

Jon Stewart

Researchers examined the efficacy of citywide COVID vaccine mandates implemented across the United States in 2021 and found — meh.
“These mandates imposed severe restrictions on the lives of many citizens and business owners,” the researchers said in a study conducted by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “Yet, we find no evidence that the mandates were effective in their intended goals of reducing COVID-19 cases and deaths.”
The researchers evaluated New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
“We find no evidence that the announcement or implementation of indoor vaccine mandates in the cities listed had any significant effect on vaccine uptake, COVID-19 cases, or COVID-19 deaths, and this is largely consistent for all US cities that implemented the mandate,” the researchers <a href="https://www.mercatus.org/research/working-papers/indoor-vaccine-mandates-and-covid-19">wrote</a>.
When COVID first appeared on our shores in early winter 2020, leaders of big cities — almost invariably Democrats — enacted major lockdowns, forcing businesses to close and shutting down entertainment and sports venues. They also ordered everyone to wear masks. When vaccines were created, those same leaders issued mandates requiring millions to take them.
For instance, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said in August 2021 that science shows mask and vaccine mandates would slow the spread.
“The updated policies we announced today are critical to slowing the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, which is more dangerous and transmissible than earlier forms of the virus,” Kenney said in a <a href="https://www.phila.gov/2021-08-12-city-of-philadelphia-implements-new-covid-19-vaccine-and-mask-requirements/">statement</a>. “The science is clear: these measures will protect Philadelphians and save lives.&#8221;
But researchers found zero evidence to back that up.
&#8220;Our findings put into question the efficacy of city-level vaccine mandates,&#8221; the researchers found. &#8220;Indoor vaccine mandates caused large disruptions for many individuals and businesses. New York City, for example, fired 1,430 city workers for failing to comply with its vaccine mandate. A survey found that over 90% of NYC restaurants reported having customer-related challenges, such as losing customers who objected to the mandate, and 75% having staff-related challenges. Those are just a small fraction of the disruptions caused by the mandates.&#8221;
&#8220;Most supporters of the mandates claim that the associated increase in vaccination rates, and its implied reduction in the spread of COVID-19, outweigh the cost of the disruptions. However, we find that the effects of the mandates on their intended outcomes are not statistically noticeable in any of the cities they were implemented in all empirical strategies used,&#8221; the report said.
Vitor Melo, a postdoctoral fellow at the Mercatus Center, said the cities&#8217; &#8220;intended outcomes were to raise vaccination rates, for people to get more vaccines; and consequently, the expectation was that COVID cases and deaths would go down.&#8221; But he added that compared to cities that didn’t implement mandates, the study found “there’s not much to show for it,&#8221; WTOP <a href="https://wtop.com/dc/2023/02/study-how-effective-was-dcs-indoor-covd-19-vaccine-mandate-in-raising-vaccination-rates/">reported</a>.
The final report added one final &#8220;key takeaway.&#8221;
&#8220;Public health restrictions and regulations were widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic, and so understanding their consequences is essential. The authors find that city-level mandates had smaller effect on vaccine uptake (and consequently on COVID-19 cases and deaths) than nationwide mandates — and thus failed to achieve their intended objectives,&#8221; said the report.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

President Biden Receives Covid-19 Booster Shot At The White House

Citywide Vaccine Mandates Did Nothing To Stop Spread Of COVID: Researchers

Citywide Vaccine Mandates Did Nothing To Stop Spread Of COVID, Researchers Find

COVID-19 Vaccine

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