“There is no general correlation between how fast a State shut down and how many people died in the first 3 weeks following an early mortality milestone.”

Yes — and that doesn’t mean the reverse is true.

There is no way to statistically reveal shutdown effectiveness or ineffectiveness without rewinding time. A weak correlation between shutdown speed and cases/deaths does not indicate a strong correlation between not shutting down and limiting cases/deaths.

Additionally comparing different countries and states is the worst caricature of an apples to oranges comparison — you cannot possible isolate for simply time and cases and then control for the infinite amount of other variables involved.

This is a shoddy analysis that offers dangerous conclusions because of a “weak R squared.”