Covid-19 Lock Down Experiment

Again, in many places the lock downs saved the hospital and health care system which would have led to much worse carnage.  Your statistics ignore that disaster avoided.

But also, the second part of your claim is a bit suspect, not clear.  The impact on business is at least slightly exaggerated.  States with no lock down, still suffered economically as people restricted behavior and the world economic impact of Covid had an impact on both export and import.  Mike Hicks wrote about this in November before the disease peaked causing much more harm than he expected.   

Casual and unscientific empiricism from some time I spent in Florida convinced me he was right.  Not much lock down, a lot of politics about mitigation.  MORE free economy for sure than most of the country.    Yet the economy suffered.  Tourism of course was reduced, that reflects market choice by consumers, not lock down.   But all other commerce suffered, too.   I was shopping for a refrigerator at Lowes in December for a rental property and living there while doing some other business.  Delivery was backed up 6 months.  This was not isolated experience in Florida, and not just appliances, could not get a telescope as Christmas present for amateur astronomer on my list, there or on the internet.   Retail businesses were hurt by that kind of supply problem, but also by lack of demand that rippled through the economy, as unemployment and refusal of shoppers to take risks had an impact. 

And those states that did not lock down often did suffer some severe health consequences, not trivial.  Gov. Kristi Noem did not lock down, but by also refusing to enact basic COVID-19 precautions like mask mandates and indoor gathering limits, has made a relatively isolated state with Canada-level population density into one with the eighth-worst COVID fatality rate in the United States. (South Dakota’s per-capita death rate is almost twice as high as neighboring Minnesota’s and, for the record, seven times higher than that of the comparably dense Canadian province of British Columbia.)

I agree with you that lock down is an extreme measure and needed to either be done universally very early to choke the virus, or done selectively with very strict mitigation afterwards if you defer, PLUS that same regimen as you reopen.  We suffered from poor national leadership and lack of coordination of a response.  But as Hicks argues above this suffering was a result of a national disaster, not just poor government.

At this point perhaps we can't lock the barn door, so to speak. But we can vaccinate and can follow the CDC recommendations on masks, and mitigation.

That makes more sense with the old strain, might not be as good for the variants.  Might even make sense to slow down or modify activity in the Spring sports until everything can be outdoors. Transportation is maybe the risk.  Michigan has some data on how their problem is that it is still cold, and people have relaxed care with kids car pooling. 

Right now, until the little incubators are able to be vaccinated they are able to be petrie dishes for variant strains.  And some are now more likely to be ill. 

NO.  The data do not support that.

The data show clearly that when health care systems are overloaded, the only emergency action that works is a lock down.  Had we NOT locked down in cases where the system is slammed we'd have horrendous results. 

The data you cite show states without the most serious emergency were able to defer lock down. It may also show that one size does not fit all.  But it is not a matter of political philosophy that matters, but other variables that cause widespread infection do matter. Your study does not address any of those variables.   If you do look several variables stand out, density of population, climate, and variables other than lock down dominate in predicting death.  These are causal variables. 

If you have no surge and do not lock down, it says literally nothing about what a state that is slammed by a surge should do.

There is terrible statistical error here in conflating correlation with causation using a single variable.

Lock down has not been a choice deferred in very many, only a very few, of the cases where circumstances were urgent.  In other words, when the infection is worse is when we have seen  lock down.  States deferring or resisting lock down are often different in important ways from the states who use lock down.  Too many other variables to draw the conclusion you do.

Find two states where a surge was present and lock down in one was chosen, in another not, and where all other variables can be controlled and you might have a case.  Give me some examples of that, and we can look at the numbers again.

What you have proven is that lock down has little role in disease in some cases. (especially AFTER the disease is widespread nationally and cannot be contained in a limited area)

Lock down is currently a response to a surge.  Past lock downs have little to do with the current surging infection rates, which have more do do with new variants, compliance (as Fauci pointed out), and people who are being infected by indoor activity.  Note the worse cases generally are cold weather states and where large events have been allowed as mitigation is loosened.

There is also a bit of a problem with data since the "successful" states you cite have all been fairly lax in testing, declined to do thorough tracking of cases, and even have less reliable data about deaths. Florida maybe an important case here.

That total deaths track the states with high population density and impact earlier in the beginning of the pandemic is hardly surprising.  That the rural states with low population density and who have not yet encountered as many variants are currently doing better also not a surprise.

Notice that Florida is in the middle of the pack, despite being blessed with climate allowing safer outdoor dining and other activities, blessed with a vulnerable older population that despite their conservative politics can isolate more easily as retirees living in 2 person households.  Florida did in fact lock down in the high density population areas.   But for most of Florida, much rural and much retirement population , contrast that with LA or NYC with many multigenerational households, more of them with workers who are exposed to the general public.

A rigorous scientific journal would insist on these factors before publishing an article anything like the one you rely on.