WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Alex Rosado: Avoiding Another (Possible) Lockdown

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Alex Rosado, a Professional Programs Assistant at the Alexander Hamilton Society and a Young Voices Contributor—argues in his latest op-ed that federal lockdowns were a costly failure, and states must champion tailored, local solutions to protect both public health and personal freedoms. He joined WRFH to discuss.From 02/06/25.

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Nicole Seguiratau, and with me today is Alex Rosado, a professional programs assistant at the Alexander Hamilton Society and a young voices contributor. Hi, Alex. Welcome. Hey, Nicole. Thanks so much for having me. Of course. At what point did you feel the need to write this article to shine a light on the possibilities of lockdowns happening again in the United States? So this is an issue that is personal to me as someone who just graduated from a college in 2024. And seeing that my first couple of semesters were during the midst of the COVID pandemic, it really brought a lot of academia and the economy and really every aspect of American life into a different place. And sometimes it was a much darker place for many people. And especially to shed light on the issue now going into what seems like another public health crisis with the bird flu. There's a lot of preparation being made at the federal government, at the state

levels, and even at the community levels to possibly prepare for something happening with that. And seeing that happening now, we need to look back on the COVID pandemic and see what lessons we can learn from it so that way we are better off to navigate the next crisis, whichever one that may be. I absolutely agree. I also think that, I don't know, being in college right now personally, I couldn't imagine experiencing this during COVID. It would just be so completely different. And I completely understand why it's so important to you that this doesn't happen again, because I'm sure it really must have compromised your college experience. So who would you say your target audience was with this article? Just trying to reach the average American, really,

and those who have an interest within education, within public health, and also politics in general. There's a big, big overlap in terms of the interests of the average American. And they don't really realize that because everything is always molded together. But when you take these different sectors and analyze them individually, you really get to see how bad politics, bad policy, or conversely, good politics and good policy can really impact their lives. You saw that with the federal government's response to COVID itself by having these lockdowns that had a lot of stay-at-home orders that people didn't agree with. And you saw protests out on the streets. You saw people rebelling against mass mandates. And it was for the sole purpose of them having autonomy back in their lives at a time when they didn't feel that it was necessary.

Especially having and trying to coerce a population into really doing anything against their will. That's not going to go well. People have the individual rights, the responsibilities and the liberties to take initiative over what they think is best. And you saw that in full with the COVID pandemic. It's why states and local communities are best apt to deal with these crises and responses, because they're best able to have the policies and the initiatives that will be best in their own backyard, rather than an overarching umbrella from the federal government that may not be the best for you, your family, and your neighbors. Absolutely. Yeah, I completely agree that individual states probably have a better idea of what personally will help individuals.

However, a concern I'd like to bring up is that states such as Florida, which are more conservative, will probably be more willing to give their residents the liberty to make their own choices regarding their safety during the pandemic. However, other states such as California or New York, as we saw with COVID, were much more strict in their restrictions. how would you say that we should just go about the process of trusting the states with their own private policies? Because at the end of the day, it's like more liberal states probably will be more likely to implement stricter lockdowns. Certainly, and that comes down to even more of a devolution of power with communal approaches. But speaking on Florida for a minute, DeSantis, Governor DeSantis actually had a very good model that a lot of the nation ended up being inspired. and wanted to aspire to. You saw that they had an early and phased reopening strategy that prioritized face-to-face learning

within schools. So that way you could avoid a learning loss that many education experts say is now inrecoverable for many kindergarten students, even up to the fourth grade. You saw a lot of parents nationwide because of this COVID lockdown and the pandemic responses by blue states in particular. Now they don't want to enroll their child in public school systems. homeschooling rates have skyrocketed, and the amount of learning loss that has been seen with standardized testing, scores have been dropping essentially from a B to a C in many subjects,

actually all six except for one. But what Florida did differently is that they linked achievement gaps to school reopenings, to economic recovery, having a lot of synthesis between these areas and making sure that above all, it was a public health response that would primarily put the people's interests first. And I think that's especially important for any government, whether it be in your own backyard or at the federal level, have the people's interests at heart when you make these decisions. Absolutely. And so if keeping schools open is kind of the format that should be followed going forward, which I completely agree with, what would you say to parents who may not necessarily want their children in school, but also may not be able to homeschool. Do you see a

solution to that or at the end of the day is ultimately just accepting that parents can kind of make their own decisions for their children? I would say that freedom is a responsibility, and that also entails having options and the flexibility to customize your learning experience for your children. And if you are a student who may be more compromised or have pre-existing symptoms or conditions, then there should be flexibility in accommodating you as well. One of the only innovative solutions that came out of the COVID pandemic when it came to learning was the introduction of remote learning. But even that has its downsides too.

You saw that there was a skill loss when it came to remote learning, and many children really preferred that environment of being in person. But if push comes to shove, if you need remote learning, there is an option for that. and those should be available for those who are in the populations that have, as I said beforehand, preexisting symptoms or actually need the accommodations. It shouldn't be used as a crutch. You should be able to enroll your kids in public education, kindergarten programs, whatever level, and have quality education.

Because quality education for most sectors of the population is upwards mobilization, socially, politically and economically. Schools have to reduce their dependency on the same government. programs that cause these closures and the educational deficits because you saw that the lockdowns didn't even slow the spread. There's also a big anxiety for most children with remote learning. So it really is a customizable approach that you have to realize what you're capable of and what you're comfortable with personally. Yeah, I think that it really does depend on the child and also the age that they're at because I was homeschooled during high school, which ended up overlapping with COVID.

but because I had been able to go to a public school system up until eighth grade, I had developed social skills, but I think that a lot of the kids who may have been raised online through remote learning didn't develop those skills. Would you say that there's any way to kind of combat that moving forward if parents decide that remote learning is a safer option for their child? Well, it really is a tale of two school systems in that sense. So you have one that is being raised entirely online. And there are studies about that, too, with screen use and the development of children, especially when it comes to education, that they actually learn less when they're behind the screen for most of their career, as opposed to in person interacting with their peers, getting a hands-on experience with education, with homework packets. Even the social settings, too, are very conducive to childhood development. So you need to strike a balance between the two, especially for those who prefer the remote setting, give them more of a reason to come to school and especially promote those values that you're being part of a community. You're not just a student, that you can be part of different organizations, have the learning experience that America was built upon truly in the schoolhouses for so many years that have provided a fantastic society for you to be incorporated in. It doesn't happen and you don't have to be isolated. You don't have to self-isolate either. It's a warm environment, especially within school systems and people shouldn't be afraid to be a part of it.

I completely agree. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Nicole Segueratow talking to Alex Rosado, and we're going to switch the conversation back a little bit towards the economy again. Now that we see the economy starting to really recover, cover from the hit that it took from the COVID-19 pandemic. How much do you think a new lockdown would re-effect this since we are still kind of regaining our strength as a country? In blanket terms, very poorly. There was actually a great piece in Imprice that I was reading about this called the economic disaster of the pandemic response. And the author noted that the lockdowns kicked off a gigantic government spending. Paloosa. COVID response spending amounted to about $6 trillion in normal operations, and that ran the national debt up to about 120% of GDP. That's a lot. And just to compare it to 1981 when there was

another public health crisis, it only amounted to 35% of the GDP. So you could just see that there is a tremendous lopsiding when it comes to our fiscal responsibility. And it really is fiscal irresponsibility. You saw, especially with other papers that were published during the time, most notably during the 2022 cycle with the National Bureau of Economic Research, showed that lockdowns hurt the general and state economies. And it reduced GDP by 5.4%. You saw that consumer spending decreased by about 8% after three months. And there were so many different sectors such as air travel, and dining that were disproportionately affected by it as well. We are still reaping the poor management when it comes to money from the COVID pandemic.

And if there is one, I really hope that our leaders will stress that we can't afford quite literally to do the same thing again. No, it truly would be awful. I mean, as a high school student at the time going through COVID, even I could see the rising prices and stores and just how much it would negatively impact lower income families who already were just trying to get by and afford food to eat. So if the United States economy were to remain open, if the rest of the world went into a shutdown, do you think that as a country, we would be then in a way responsible for other countries to then support them monetize?

Well, economic development is certainly a prospect that always happens when it comes to globalization, especially in today's world, where you see that, for example, with the Chinese economy, the United States and Chinese economies have a significant overlap. And that's what caused part of the 2008 recession, was that when a lot of the big banks in America started falling, you saw that domino effect ripple to countries developed and non-developed all over the world. It was something that, for better or worse, we were all in together. So the way that globalization works is that when it comes to American success, a lot of other countries correspondingly happen to be the same.

And that doesn't mean that American success is the barometer for all of these other countries because they have their own interests, cultures, development, and other factors that cannot be ignored. But generally, when America succeeds, so does the rest of the world. That's the trend that has been observed socially, politically, economically in the last especially 50 years. When you saw with the COVID pandemic, it cost taxpayers $14 trillion. Now, that's two times the impact of the Great Recession itself. And because of that, you saw that global markets were down, not just in the stock market, but also bonds, equities, everything was collapsing, no matter the country of origin. But when America started to recover, and again, I will emphasize that we are still recovering, we are still in our assent, other countries too are getting back up on their feet and trying to resume business as normal. So I really do think that it comes with an America-centric approach by making sure that we have what we can do for our citizens and the rest will ripple outwards.

Yeah, I do think that when America succeeds the rest of the country or the rest of the world tends to follow. in that pattern of success and growth. However, if the rest of the world were shut down, America was trying to continue to prosper economically, how difficult would it be because of our dependency on trading with other countries? Well, I would say that with the trade aspect, especially, it's a perfect example to bring this up because now you're seeing, with the second Trump administration that they're trying to levy tariffs against countries such as

Canada, Mexico, China. China has just had imposed 10% tariffs, I believe Canada and Mexico were about 25%. And these are more protective measures when you could have other solutions, other free market solutions that I think would be best for the country to embrace, such as protecting intellectual property. So that way, there isn't theft. There's fair competition. More players can enter the field. and there's a lesser barrier to entry. You could also have other ways by formalizing trade disputes with the World Trade Organization. China just did so the other day, but I don't think it will be to any veil, because unfortunately, they do have predatory practices that sap away American innovation.

So I do think that hammering out the trade aspect when it comes to the freedom of the marketplace, economic liberty, that is something that is first going to affect the manufacturers, and the producers of America. If you give them more resources, you give them more of an opportunity to produce, to manufacture, to output something to the public, they're going to be better off. That also means that consumers, American consumers, especially you're going to be better off. I mean, who doesn't want more options to choose from when it comes to, say, groceries, when it comes to apps, when it comes to really the daily commodities that fuel and enhance our

quality of life? Who doesn't love options? So when you do that, especially again in an American sense, it ripples outwards. And you're going to see the results of that, hopefully with some more free market policies, even irrespective of a global health crisis. So this seems to be tying back into states having more liberty in what they do, as opposed to having a complete nationwide shutdown. So in your article, you mentioned that it would be.

be state governments taking on the responsibility of simply distributing information and allowing people to make their own decisions regarding health precautions and if businesses should stay open or not. I have a feeling that a lot of citizens may have some mistrust in the information that's coming from state governments regarding medical information. So how do you think state government should handle that. Certainly. Well, there is a lot of distrust. You were absolutely correct in that assessment.

And that's at every level of government. It doesn't matter if it's your local municipality or your city council or whether it be the presidency. There is a deep, now it's almost a fear of the government, which shouldn't have to be the case. The governors and the governed should work coexistingly together to solve these pandemic crises or any global health crisis, any economic crisis to that extent, too. But you're seeing now that these are two parties that have been hit against each other, and the COVID pandemic certainly

did not help with that. That's why I emphasize that for state governments, such as what the pandemic response was in Florida, he gave the people's right to allow them to determine what went into their bodies with the vaccine, gave them very flexible, not even regulations, but guidelines, if they wanted to follow them. And that's why you saw, particularly in Florida, you had the largest net migration in the country in 2022. There was record tourism as well. It was about 140 million people going to Florida just visiting in 2022 because they wanted that sense of liberty. They didn't want to be muzzled down quite literally by mass band-aids.

They wanted to feel as if they were in control of their lives. there was also a big GDP increase within Florida too that outpaced the national average. So when it comes to trusting this information, really the information gets down to, are you going to let us do what we want? Or do we have to enforce to comply? And truly, that is at the crux of a lot of global health conversations today is trying to mediate and find that middle line. So that way people feel like they can trust the government again while also having practical and effective governance. Yes, absolutely.

So do you think you mentioned the country being pretty divided on this issue? And we are certainly very politically divided. But after this election, it looked like there was a pretty general consensus in that we wanted to shift and that the economy especially was an issue that most Americans were agreed over in wanting us to economically succeed. So do you think that most Americans would probably respond negatively to another nationwide lockdown being put in place? There is no doubt in my mind. I say this just even as a topical observer of the election, that when you asked people what they were voting for, not even who you were voting, what the most important issue was, about in studies showed this too, about 35% of all Americans, one third of them. said the economy. We want more money in our pocket. We want more take home pay. We want more jobs.

We don't want our small businesses to shut down. We want a wide array of products. And really, that's what people went to the polls to vote for because they saw that under the Trump economy, business was booming. And it's unfortunate that that business came to a screeching halt with the COVID pandemic. But now you're seeing in 2025 that things are, you're going to be a screeching halt. getting back to normal with the economy. And really, it was a referendum on the Biden administration, too. Just even talking about the price of eggs that everybody is on Twitter really talking about these days skyrocketed. The price of gasoline. Remember that? Skyrocketed too in 2021 and 2022. And it just became harder to live and accomplish the same feats that you could have done

more easily under the Trump administration. So people wanted a return to economic normalcy. And during the COVID pandemic, you saw one third of small businesses across America shuddered completely. They're gone. 22 million non-farm jobs are sacrificed for nothing. They're gone. They're not going to return. So a lot of industry crumbled because of the nationwide pandemic.

And now that you're seeing that it's over, we're getting back to business. They are slowly coming back, but in a different sense. Lost jobs are not recovered jobs. You need American innovation to make new jobs, ones that will pay well, ones that Americans will want to work with, and ones that will get our economy booming again. All right. We have time for one more question. So if lockdowns were to become likely again, what should individuals personally do to prevent the federal government from shutting everything down again? Because at the end of the day, it kind of comes out to our actions and how we respond. Well, it really comes down to an individual case-by-case level. There is no ascribed guidance that I can give viewers.

But I will say that it does matter that America, as a whole, rejects the lockdown mentality. And we need to have a balanced pandemic response of both medical and personal freedom. And when it comes to the suggested guidelines by public health organizations, it's suggested. I would say that as a person, you have the individual responsibility to take care of yourself. You know your health better than other global institutions, better than gigantic federal bureaucrats that, quite frankly, are a lot and out of tune with the American public. So you're the one that should make the conscious and responsible decisions to engage with public health crises and guidelines and all of the recommended advice.

to your own ability. So I would just leave viewers with this, is that in a nation that is founded on liberty, our autonomy as people, as citizens, and as people who are being governed by a government, it's our moral imperative for us to retain that. And it's a good strategy also for achieving public health goals. And I truly hope that this will be the mindset that people take with them if there is, unfortunately, another pandemic. Thank you so much for your time. Our guest has been Alex Rosado and I'm Nicole Seguirateau on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.