It would make sense if closed cities were doing better than oepn cities but that isn't the case. Miami has fewer deaths than NYC and everything is open in Miami.
Vitamin D? Miami is a lot sunnier.
LA is pretty damn sunny
Yeah, it is puzzling. Of course we are assuming that all areas count cases and deaths the same. That may not be true. Maybe the rates are similar.
I think it's probably fair that when this is all presumably past, we'll conclude that some of the measures that we took and that many feel very strongly about weren't super-effective. (And a lot of it boils down to dumb luck.) On the other hand, there have been mitigating measures to some degree in most places so I can't seriously argue that we should have just have said "screw it. Let's just pretend that everything's normal." and act accordingly.
LA and Miami have similar # of deaths to covid while LA has way more restrictions. The difference? The difference? The restrictions can't stop the spread of a respiratory disease. They never could. We just copied China on the masks, social distancing, and lockdowns. That's it. Virus gonna virus whatever you do.
I used to live in LA and people really flouted the restrictions. They worked in China because the Chinese actually followed them.
I currently live in a SE asian country w/ very few covid deaths and few restrictions. The most likely reason is prior immunity due to exposure to other coronaviruses.
This would be fair enough if it were the case that only those choosing to attend the event are taking the risk. Most would-be attendees presumably live in societies where they interact with others, and presumably would need to interact with others travelling too and from the event.