Mandates Don’t Work, Part 200 Million
Perhaps the best indicator of the total uselessness of mask mandates is a map of the United States showing the researchers adjusted comparisons of COVID mortality rates.
Notice how Florida outperformed California after adjustment? Amazing that the strictest lockdowns and most prolific mask mandates were entirely useless compared to the free state of Florida, isn’t it?
It would seem to provide some important conclusions to take away about the importance and effectiveness of mandates, doesn’t it?
Of course, there’s another glaringly obvious conclusion to draw from this graphic: regional factors matter. A lot.
It is clear that Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee have a lot in common., as do Georgia and South Carolina and most of the Midwest and upper Midwest.
And what do you know, their results are clustered close together.
Again, who could have predicted this?!
Many people did, for example, in huge numbers of charts comparing regions showing that their curves moved in similar patterns.
The actual data behind the map makes it even more obvious.
There is no predictable pattern to these rates. None whatsoever.
Florida is now the 12th best performing state in the country, with a governor who was nicknamed “DeathSantis” by the media, public health “experts,” and huge swaths of the public.
The District of Columbia is now the second WORST performing “state,” despite having vaccine mandates, mask mandates, strict lockdowns and one of the most liberal, “science following” populations.
New Mexico, the state
Scientific American once claimed “controlled” the spread of the virus, is the third worst performing.
Colorado with its Democratic governor and liberal population is now one of the 5 worst performing states.
In fact, despite the
media’s assertions to the contrary, Democrats controlled three of the five worst performing jurisdictions. And the absolute worst just elected a Democratic governor after voting for two Democratic senators.
Not exactly a red state problem, now is it?
By contrast, New Hampshire and Vermont, while obviously not exactly red states themselves, had Republican governors and some of the best outcomes. Ohio and Nebraska also “overperformed” despite relatively lax policies.
And California. Oh, California.
Gavin Newsom, who repeatedly attempts to “taunt” other states about their COVID performance, led California to one of the 16 worst outcomes.
Deep red South Carolina did better, as did Oklahoma. Both were states that never had mask mandates.
Doesn’t look too good for Gavin now, does it?
The lack of connection between strict mandates and COVID metrics is so obvious that even the researchers had to acknowledge it.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but a few key details are important to point out.
No state sponsored mandates were remotely effective at preventing COVID deaths. Not one. Neither was non-vaccine related behavior.
The mask mandate dot is quite literally at zero percent. There was no impact whatsoever on COVID death rates based on mask mandates. None. It was useless.
If anything, the confidence bar (the black line) moves slightly in the
positive direction. Meaning there was a slightly greater likelihood of mask mandates being associated with
higher standardized death rates.
Mandate propensity, how frequently states imposed mandates, was associated with higher death rates. As were closed schools and gathering restrictions.
All of the confidence bars cross over both sides, except vaccine mandates for state employees, meaning the results could encompass either positive or negative effects. It’s all pointless.
Vaccine mandates for state employees is a laughable conclusion, considering how limited those policies are in scope.
For example, California has roughly 234,000 state employees, out of roughly 39,000,000 people. There is no possible way to get a causal effect from a mandate covering ~0.6% of the population.
Mask usage also didn’t matter, with the confidence interval ranging the entire possibility of outcomes from association with lower rates to higher rates.
None of it worked, none of it matters.
There were some associations with infection rates, but obviously those are heavily impacted by confounding factors, especially in 2022. Not to mention that COVID will eventually infect
everyone regardless of what policies the government chooses.
Another piece of evidence confirms the obvious
ianmsc.substack.com
I still love seeing idiots wearing masks while they are walking down the street or driving their car alone.
