This study is already being cited in the mainstream media as proof that vaccine mandates had no effect on vaccination uptake, but this conclusion is misleading, since the present paper considers only one kind of a mandate that could be easily evaded in the studied cities (not the federally imposed employment mandates). The author acknowledges that vaccine mandates in Europe and on the country level did cause a significantly higher uptake. The kind of mandates we had in Australia were radically stronger then city-level indoor mandates for going to museums, gyms, indoor sporting events or restaurants, which could be evaded by going to nearby places where mandates did not apply; this was not allowed either in EU or Australia. So why is the corporate media misrepresenting the results of this study as if it were applicable to all vaccine mandates everywhere? I suggest it is because this misleading conclusion implies that nobody was killed by the mandates because the mandates did not manage to coerce anybody to take the vaccine against their voluntary consent. It is their get out of jail card.
The statistical methodology in this study is quite obscure, and I am afraid I do not have the headspace right now to assess the evidential quality of the ‘synthetic difference in difference’ method, which would require hours (perhaps days) of homework, so I will leave this to those who are more professionally interested in this aspect and will focus on other points of concern. Specifically, 1) the conclusions seem at odds with the nominal uptake figures per capita in mandated/treated vs unmandated/untreated MSAs, as reported in Table 2, which shows higher rates of vaccination in the mandated cities. 2) the author reports some astounding reporting anomalies in the official vaccination statistics, and of the inputs are unreliable, the outputs are unlikely to be any better. 3) the author writes “ We aggregate the data to the MSA level, because MSAsconsist of a city and surrounding areas that are linked by economic factors as established by the US Office of Management and Budget. One of the primary economic factors considered is the labor market. Thus, a vaccine mandate implemented in a city will affect people who live outside the city but work in the city.” This would dilute the effect of the mandates since part of the population live and work in the ‘surrounding areas’ that are not subject to the mandates.
Given that this study is an outlier among dozens of other studies (drawing opposite conclusions), and at odds with the comparison of nominal rates of uptake, extra scrutiny may be in order.
This study is already being cited in the mainstream media as proof that vaccine mandates had no effect on vaccination uptake, but this conclusion is misleading, since the present paper considers only one kind of a mandate that could be easily evaded in the studied cities (not the federally imposed employment mandates). The author acknowledges that vaccine mandates in Europe and on the country level did cause a significantly higher uptake. The kind of mandates we had in Australia were radically stronger then city-level indoor mandates for going to museums, gyms, indoor sporting events or restaurants, which could be evaded by going to nearby places where mandates did not apply; this was not allowed either in EU or Australia. So why is the corporate media misrepresenting the results of this study as if it were applicable to all vaccine mandates everywhere? I suggest it is because this misleading conclusion implies that nobody was killed by the mandates because the mandates did not manage to coerce anybody to take the vaccine against their voluntary consent. It is their get out of jail card.
The headline that I took from the study was Death from Covid19. It would be interesting to get numbers in the US cities covered who refused the jab.
The statistical methodology in this study is quite obscure, and I am afraid I do not have the headspace right now to assess the evidential quality of the ‘synthetic difference in difference’ method, which would require hours (perhaps days) of homework, so I will leave this to those who are more professionally interested in this aspect and will focus on other points of concern. Specifically, 1) the conclusions seem at odds with the nominal uptake figures per capita in mandated/treated vs unmandated/untreated MSAs, as reported in Table 2, which shows higher rates of vaccination in the mandated cities. 2) the author reports some astounding reporting anomalies in the official vaccination statistics, and of the inputs are unreliable, the outputs are unlikely to be any better. 3) the author writes “ We aggregate the data to the MSA level, because MSAsconsist of a city and surrounding areas that are linked by economic factors as established by the US Office of Management and Budget. One of the primary economic factors considered is the labor market. Thus, a vaccine mandate implemented in a city will affect people who live outside the city but work in the city.” This would dilute the effect of the mandates since part of the population live and work in the ‘surrounding areas’ that are not subject to the mandates.
Given that this study is an outlier among dozens of other studies (drawing opposite conclusions), and at odds with the comparison of nominal rates of uptake, extra scrutiny may be in order.
Yet, covid jab mandates had a huge impact on "coincidence" deaths...
Thanks for this reference. Looking into the methods they used. We can learn from methods used in Economics analysis.
"COUGH"