We can't perform a true repeatable experiment, running it twice and only changing NPI variables. However, we have perhaps what is the next best thing: 50 experiments all running at the same time. And what's the result? This. 1/ https://twitter.com/OBusybody/status/1339625209062678530

Weird. I mean, if the interventions worked, shouldn't these graphs be punctuated with a few oddly-bent curves? 2/

Explaining this away is dabbling in metaphysics. A surge happened here, but enough social distancing happened there to compensate, etc. The theory is entirely different, but coincidentally it arrives at the same result. 3/

This unprecedented surge in California should be the final nail in the coffin for interventionist theory. "But if we hadn't intervened it would have been worse!!" Nope. Not if we extrapolate from the graphs already shown. 4/

We must assume that if there existed a California2, with similar regional attributes but without NPI mandates, its graph would also be similar. 5/

We know a lot about viruses at the micro level. As far as I can tell (not being an epidemiologist) we know almost nothing about them at the macro level, or if so, we're in the process of rejecting that knowledge in favor of a kind of Epidemiological Keynesianism. 6/

For the public to be "healthy", we must manage it--there must be constant intervention. And this flourishes for the same reason Keynesianism (and its ilk) flourishes in economics: it's the most adaptive meme. 7/

An epidemiology that doesn't have the strong "management" aspect simply can't maintain the same audience of zealous advertisers, grant-funded researchers, and practitioners. 8/

(Note that there's no conspiracy here. Just normal people of average intelligence taking advantage of the available incentives to better their lot in life, and sincerely believing they're doing it for the good of mankind.) 9/

In the US, epidemiology /must/ function this way; it's inevitable. And it isn't the first scientific discipline to have turned this corner. 10/10