Do Legal Restrictions Account for the Downward Trend in New COVID-19 Cases? Reason.com

Three weeks after newly identified COVID-19 cases began falling in the United States, The New York Times is acknowledging the downward trend, which it attributes to “effective restrictions.” That explanation fits neatly with the paper’s reflexive enthusiasm for lockdowns, but it does not fit the data very well.

Consider Arizona, where the seven-day average of daily new cases, according to Worldometer’s tallies, rose more than tenfold between Memorial Day and July 7. Alarmed by that increase, Gov. Doug Ducey ordered gyms, bars, movie theaters, and water parks to close on July 23, while indoor dining in restaurants continued at 50 percent of capacity, a cap Ducey imposed on July 11. But the downward trend in new cases, which had fallen by 82 percent from the July 7 peak as of yesterday, began well before the new restrictions could have had a measurable impact (taking into account the typical five-day lag between infection and symptoms that might cause people to seek testing). That suggests other factors are at least partly responsible for the decline.

via reason.com