Gov. Beshear has saved lives in pandemic. We should thank him, not limit his powers.
Since November, I have volunteered with the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), a University of Oxford initiative that tracks pandemic-response measures across state and national governments. This work affords an interesting window into the highs and lows of pandemic policy across the US. Data from the tracker make one thing clear: Gov. Andy Beshear has performed far better than other governors in managing our collective crisis. His decisive mandates have paid dividends in saving the lives of Kentuckians, even if some leaders now condemn his actions.
One need look only as far as Tennessee to gauge what might have happened had Beshear’s response been more timid. With a population just 50 percent higher than Kentucky’s, our southern neighbor has had over two times the number of cases and 2.6 times as many COVID-related deaths, according to data from The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project. The Volunteer State’s policy response has oscillated between loose gathering restrictions (only recently tightened to 10) and encouragement—though notably not requirements—to limit travel, wear masks and work from home. For months, Tennesseans have been calling for a statewide mask mandate to no avail. Governor Bill Lee continues to cite religious and political freedom as reasons to limit state-level intervention—and the results of inaction are stark. On Dec. 20, with Tennessee’s hospitals at capacity, Lee analogised the state to a battlefield: “Tennessee is ground zero for a surge in sickness. . . We are in a war.”
A bit further south, Alabama is ensnared in a similar crisis. OxCGRT’s data show that Governor Kay Ivey has not closed schools, placed capacity limits on businesses, or taken some of the other steps we’ve seen in Kentucky. Notably, Alabama has had twice as many deaths as Kentucky despite having only a marginally larger population. Though it is difficult to pin this disparity on one particular action, it is clear that COVID-19 restrictions are critical to keeping people safe. The irony of the fact that Alabama has been evacuating patients to Kentucky—while Kentuckians criticize Beshear for his “authoritarian” COVID-19 response—is not lost here.
In addition to illuminating what has gone wrong in places like Tennessee and Alabama, the OxCGRT data show what other states get right. States with lower levels of virus exposure share governors (across the political spectrum) who have decided that protecting people matters more than maintaining personal popularity. Consider West Virginia, which has kept cases and deaths at bay through a series of targeted executive actions. There, Governor Jim Justice (a Republican), in conjunction with state health and education officials, has mandated periodic statewide school closures, required masks in all indoor venues since July and recommended West Virginians cancel holiday celebrations. His executive orders have also expanded unemployment benefits, prohibited elective medical procedures and mandated National Guard testing of every nursing-home resident. This month West Virginia has been celebrated nationally as the US leader in vaccine administration, due in large part to Justice’s use of executive power.
Back home in Kentucky, many residents are quick to condemn our own Governor’s efforts to fight COVID-19—actions which have kept Kentuckians alive and hospitals below capacity despite chaos just beyond our borders. Restaurants have stood in proud defiance of indoor dining restrictions, pastors have sued to keep in-person services and religious schools open, and an Impeachment Committee has formed to criticize Beshear’s pandemic response. Most troubling is the fact that our state House and Senate have already legislated permanent reductions in Beshear’s executive powers.
Having tracked Kentucky’s news alongside developments in Tennessee, Alabama and West Virginia, I am confident that we should stay the course and stop the personal attacks. Yet many Kentuckians seem so committed to censuring Beshear in the name of “freedom” that they forget the very real risk of becoming slaves to a virus that has already wounded neighboring states. It is a deep (and painful) irony that the governor perhaps most deserving of recognition is now met with statewide reprisal. I, for one, remain thankful for his courage.
Disclaimer: This work does not represent the views of the University of Oxford or the Blavatnik School of Government’s OxCGRT project team.
Rachel Dixon is a native Kentuckian and recent graduate of the MPhil in Comparative Social Policy at Oxford, where she studied Appalachian health and labor market policy.