Twin Cities vaccine and testing regimes hurt businesses for no effect on COVID-19

I’ve noted recently how the vaccine and testing regime imposed on Minneapolis by Mayor Jacob Frey last month has hit businesses in the city that were already hurting. I have not seen data for St. Paul, which imposed a similar mandate, but this message from DeGidio’s — a fixture in the city since 1933 — suggests that all is not well:

Well, there is a pandemic on and this is just collateral damage in the war against COVID-19, isn’t it? Not if there is no benefit to show for it. Then all you have is damage. That seems to be the case here.

As MPR News’ David Montgomery reported last week, COVID-19 cases in Hennepin and Ramsey counties are falling quite steeply. But, crucially, they started falling on Jan. 8, 11 days before the new vaccine and testing regime began in the Twin Cities.

True, we see a steeper fall in cases in Hennepin and Ramsey counties than we do elsewhere, but, again, we see that steeper fall before the new measures kicked in. We also see peaks in cases and subsequent declines in Southeast Minnesota, Metro suburbs, and East Central Minnesota, all without new measures being put in place.

This is pretty suggestive evidence that the vaccine and testing regime enacted in Minneapolis and St. Paul has done no good in the fight against COVID-19 and that the damage it has done to businesses there has been for nothing. These measures need to be dumped, and dumped quickly.