The pandemic was a "catastrophe for human freedom.”
Channel: ReasonTV
Date: 13/04/2023

The national emergency is over, or at least finally has been acknowledged as such by President Joe Biden, who on Monday signed a Republican-sponsored resolution "which terminates the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic." A separate bill ending the public health emergency has passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

The pandemic was a "catastrophe for human freedom" wrote Ian Vásquez of the Cato Institute earlier this year. Vásquez is an author of the Cato Institute and Fraser Institute's annual Human Freedom Index, which measures freedom worldwide using metrics such as rule of law, security and safety, freedom of movement, expression, and information. The report concludes that "94.3 percent of the world's population saw a fall in human freedom from 2019 to 2020" and that the United States has fallen from the world's sixth freest country in 2000 to the 23rd freest in 2020.

Join Reason's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller this Thursday at 1 p.m. ET as they talk with Vásquez about the effects that the pandemic and the lingering emergency measures have had on freedom in America and worldwide.

00:00 Biden ends national emergency
4:55 Human Freedom Index
14:02 COVID restrictions worldwide
20:41 Rule of law during emergencies
29:13 U.S. falling down the freedom rankings
42:12 Latin America is a warning for the U.S.
52:33 Chinese totalitarianism
1:03:52 Economic vs personal freedom
1:10:46 What libertarians get wrong about freedom