Iowa’s comparatively limited response to the COVID-19 pandemic limited the blow to its economy, according to a new report from the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO).

The GCO measured the impact of each state’s actions on its respective economy in a 510-page study, “Assessing Each State’s Response To The Pandemic: Understanding The Impact On Employment & Work.” The report compared the states’ government’s responses to the pandemic using the Abridged Oxford Stringency Index (AOSI) from the Coronavirus Government Response Tracker of Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. GCO created a Government Severity Index (GSI), which analyzed the impact of school closures (kindergarten through 12th grade), workplace closures, gathering restrictions, capacity limits and stay-at-home mandates.

Washington state’s harsh measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact in terms of job losses and recovery from those losses, according to a new report put out by the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO), without the hoped-for decline in hospitalizations and deaths from the virus.

As the pandemic began to hit the U.S. in early 2020, state governments – including Washington state – imposed economic restrictions such as business closures, stay-at-home orders, school closures, gathering restrictions, and capacity limits at certain establishments like restaurants. The severity of such orders varied by state.

The detailed, highly-technical 510-page study, “Assessing Each State’s Response To The Pandemic: Understanding The Impact On Employment & Work,” was released on Dec. 3. It compares two different indexes measuring the severity of government actions in responding to the pandemic: the Abridged Oxford Stringency Index (AOSI) and the Government Severity Index (GSI).

“Washington ranked #1 in the GSI but #14 in the AOSI, but more severe than either [Iowa] or [Minnesota] ,” Erik Randolph, the GCO’s director of research and author of the report, wrote in an email to The Center Square. “The results suggest that [Washington] – that had one of the strongest pre-pandemic job growth (i.e., 2.6% per the 12 months prior) could have saved more jobs. The estimated economic impact for [Washington] is 46,700 for each SD movement.”