Republicans 'investigating' Arizona's COVID-19 response will conveniently ignore the dead

There is one sure way to know if the state of Arizona did a good job or a bad job in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Count the dead.

That’s it.

That’s all you need.

But I’d guess the so-called Novel Coronavirus Southwestern Intergovernmental Committee will ignore that grim number.

We know how COVID-19 'was mismanaged'

The collective of Arizona Republican lawmakers proposing to investigate how “the pandemic was mismanaged” won’t want to talk about the dead.

The committee members — GOP state Reps. Janae Shamp, T.J. Shope and Steve Montenegro, along with Republican U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar and Eli Crane — have different concerns.

Political concerns. Weird, partisan, conspiratorial concerns that don’t comport with the facts.

Because, factually, there is only one sure way to measure whether a state did a good job or a bad job in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another view:How well did Ducey handle COVID-19? It depends

One way only.

And that is by counting the dead.

When you do that, there is no need for this cockamamie committee because we already know how badly the pandemic was mismanaged in Arizona, and why.

The reason is that Gov. Doug Ducey paid too much attention to political kooks like those on the Novel Coronavirus Southwestern Intergovernmental Committee, which caused more Arizonans to die from the virus than needed to die.

Arizona has 1 of the nation's worst records

In her article in The Arizona Republic about the committee, reporter Stephanie Innes pointed out a study in The Lancet showing that Arizona had the highest cumulative standardized COVID-19 death rate in the U.S. for a period between Jan. 1, 2020 and July 31, 2022.

And that the COVID-19 death rate in Arizona, West Virginia and Mississippi was up there with Russia, Bulgaria and Peru, who had some of the worst death rates in the world.

If you lived here during the pandemic and paid attention to what was going on, you know how badly things were handled.

You may have read about how by 2022 more than 28,000 Arizonans died of COVID-19 and nearly 2 million were infected. And that only the state of Mississippi had a higher death rate per 100,000 citizens than Arizona’s number — 386.

Or maybe you saw how in 2021 the state of Washington, with a similar population to Arizona, had more than 800,000 cases of COVID-19 and fewer than 10,000 deaths, while Arizona had 1.3 million cases and 23,000 deaths.

Want to assign blame? Look here first

Or maybe you followed the ongoing warnings and reports and criticisms of Will Humble from the Arizona Public Health Association.

A report from the association showed that Arizona was the only state in the nation where COVID-19 was the leading cause of death during the pandemic.

Among the Republicans on this ridiculous committee are individuals who railed against the vaccines, workplace closures and “lockdowns” imposed during the worst of the pandemic.

Measures that saved lives. And could have saved more.

But because Ducey’s administration pandered to conspiracy-driven politicians like some of those on the committee, Arizonans died in higher numbers than we should have.

To date, the state has lost more than 30,000 of our brothers and sisters to COVID-19.

State Rep. Shamp said her committee is “determined to hold those accountable for the injustices experienced.”

First step in that process?

Look in the mirror.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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