Because there's dozens of states where indoor dining is not restricted at all and they're getting no different results in Covid cases?

> Because there's dozens of states where indoor dining is not restricted at all and they're getting no different results in Covid cases?

Is that after adjusting for things like population density/urbanization?

Also, while I don't have an easy cross references of case rates and restrictions, it certainly looks like the places at the top of per-capita case rates are also disproportionately places that have not had strong mandatory restrictions, so I suspect your claim is wrong as stated, too.

Deaths Per Million By State: 1. New Jersey - 183 2. New York - 172 3. Massachusetts - 142 4. Connecticut - 128 5. Louisiana - 124

These states have had some of the harshest restrictions. They've gotten worse results than the mixed approach for the rest of the country.

Good case in point: Michigan vs Florida. Both have about the same deaths per million at 74 and 75 respectively. Yet Florida is fully open with no restrictions. And Michigan had some of the harshest lockdowns and restrictions.

Density may have been some kind of argument early on, but we are 9 or 10 months into this. The virus has had a chance to spread.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...

> Deaths Per Million By State

That is cumulative not current status; unsurprisingly, the states that were hit the hardest often instituted the strongest controls.

But in current cases, those aren't the top any more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/corona...

Worth noting that, in a large part, this is because Michigan has been dealing with Covid-19 for an extra 2 months compared to Florida. Since August, Michigan's per capita death rate has been less than half of Florida's. Yesterday, more than 100 people died of Covid-19 in Florida. That's more than died in New York State over the last 10 days, despite approximately similar populations.

That has little to do with government policy. People from Michigan and New York State move to Florida to retire. Florida is basically where Americans go to die. It's packed with old people.

Density is always a primary factor. It doesn't go away just because 10 months have passed.

We do have to be careful about that kind of adjusting. There just aren't all that many states in the country, so adjusting for even a handful of factors risks overfitting.