I pulled the above graph from this article by Yinon Weiss in Medium. The graph above maps projected deaths from the IHME model from the University of Washington against the speed at which states required a stay at home order. There is NO CORRELATION AT ALL. There is actually a negative correlation if you just isolate the large states (to the right):
Weiss also graphs projected deaths from the IHME against other Social Distancing restrictions that have been imposed by the various states. The punchline is that none of the Social Distancing requirements seem to have any meaningful impact on reducing deaths.
Here is Weiss’ takeaway from all of this:
It would be reasonable to assume that State wide shut downs almost certainly does slow down the spread of the virus to some unknown extent. What we don’t know is how effective a State wide shut down is compared to other measures taken such as washing hands, wearing masks, avoiding large events, or letting multiplicities make their own decisions with local restrictions. The above charts are one data point that would at least indicate a very weak correlation between speed of shutting down and saving lives.
Statewide shutdowns costs us trillions of dollars, deprives children of full education, and ruins many lives; could washing hands, wearing masks, and avoiding large events be potentially more effective while a lot less damaging?
Weiss basically argues against shut downs, and looking at the data, it is hard not to reach that conclusion. Objectively, the data says that shutting down our economy has no effect on reducing the spread of the virus or it’s ultimate mortality.
I reach a different conclusion. I do not argue with the statistical correlations the writer shows in his charts. Those are irrefutable based on the publicly available data. While I think the University of Washington IHME model has some serious issues, it is based on publicly available data released by the various state Departments of Health so to a large extent it is only as good as the data it is getting.
BUT, as I have said here and here, I believe that most of the Republican Governors are suppressing their actual COVID case and mortality data from their Departments of Health for political reasons. If the data feeding the IHME model is suppressed by some states, the ultimate case loads and mortality for those states will also be suppressed.
This is not a conspiracy theory. This is simply analyzing the public data on COVID and listening to the Public Health experts. Either the data or the Public Health experts are wrong. The writer of the Medium article takes the position that the Public Health experts are wrong. Given the analysis I have already done, I believe that most of the Republican Governors are suppressing their COVID data.
Only one of those positions can be correct.