Brownstone Institute By
Closing schools worked. Closing restaurants worked. Wearing masks worked. We know they worked because the governors that ordered them said so. The CDC said so. The NIH said so.
We were granted the greatest scientific experiment COVID-19 could offer (except for the cruise ships, which provided the original scientific experiment and was ignored). Many states had (and have) wildly different policies during the pandemic. The question we need to ask and data we need to study is, if the tight restrictions worked, did they result in fewer COVID-19 and moreover total excess deaths?
Comparing one state to another, cherry-picking low-impacted Vermont to high-impacted Mississippi is dumb; they are unlike one another in geography and demographics, and importantly, obesity. Those two states are as far apart in COVID-19 death ranking as they are in obesity ranking. Mississippi is first right now in COVID-19 deaths per capita and has the highest obesity in the country. Vermont is ranked 50th in COVID-19 deaths per capita and 46th in obesity. Correlated…
