At some point then though, it's about faith. The data is noisy but we believe this hard to discern signal to be true even in the absence of statistical evidence because it's complicated.

Faith in what exactly?

For many, that mitigation measures that so much blood, sweat, and tears were poured into at significant cost and strife must have been worthwhile even given scant evidence.

It should be strong if the effect is strong. We find strong signal in noisy data in all kinds of contexts.

If all the states with masks and social distancing mandates had, on average, 30% less cases per capita than states without, that would be a strong signal even if it's not conclusive given all the other variables involved. I doubt any other variable could be found that would show that much signal. But we haven't see anything like that.

> It should be strong if the effect is strong. We find strong signal in noisy data in all kinds of contexts

And we fail to find signal, or can find whatever "signal" we want to find in all kinds of other noisy data. What says any kind of useful info is here to find?