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We should be grateful to the US State governors for providing us with the largest NPI experiment in history. Now we should analyse the results. State-by-state excess deaths vs lockdown and mask policies. The challenge is to see any material difference as a function of policy.
To be perfectly unbiased, I am chose state pairs, starting North East and rotated clockwise. I expressed excess death as the ratio over the simple 5-year average. I kept adjacent states with similar policies as controls.
I did not observe any consistent, material pattern associated with the non-pharmaceutical interventions of lockdowns and community masking, not in the time series nor in the final outcome in terms of excess mortality. The experiment has failed.
However, what was quite apparent is the similarity of progress and final outcome as a function of physical geography and population density, two major factors evidently beyond the control of human intervention.
WASHINGTON vs OREGON
IDAHO vs MONTANA
NORTH DAKOTA vs SOUTH DAKOTA
MINNESOTA vs WISCONSIN
IOWA vs ILLINOIS
MICHIGAN vs INDIANA
OHIO vs WEST VIRGINIA
PENNSYLVANIA vs NEW YORK
VERMONT vs MAINE
NEW HAMPSHIRE vs MASSACHUSETTS
CONNECTICUT vs RHODE ISLAND
NEW JERSEY vs DELAWARE
MARYLAND vs VIRGINIA
NORTH CAROLINA vs SOUTH CAROLINA (N.B. NC is very late to report deaths)
GEORGIA vs FLORIDA
KENTUCKY vs TENNESSEE
ALABAMA vs MISSISSIPPI
MISSOURI vs ARKANSAS
LOUISIANA vs MISSISSIPPI
OKLAHOMA vs TEXAS
NEBRASKA vs KANSAS
* Second chart is mask mandates, not lockdowns. Title is wrong.
