8/n This is mentioned in a sentence in the discussion, but I think it's a fundamental issue that makes this analysis a bit useless. We know that 50%+ of COVID-19 deaths are in the over-65 population, who are the least likely to be represented in this dataset!
18/n Even within Australia, which was included, the massive Victorian outbreak/lockdown skew the figures enormously, because one state with 1/4 of the population locked down while the rest of the country opened up
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19/n We might actually expect null findings from an ecological trial of this sort, because at the country level heterogeneity in local policy irons out a lot of the impact
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20/n It's also worth noting that the study literally does not address the question of whether government orders influenced COVID-19 deaths. Even if you ignore all the other issues, "residential" mobility data simply can't answer that question!
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21/n There are many reasons that people stay at home, and given the opacity of "residential" data it's hard to say much about the results other than that this is a hard question that we may never answer well
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22/n That being said, the idea that this study disproves staying at home as a driver of COVID-19 mortality is obviously wrong - at best, it is an example of how difficult answering that question can be
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