The below is something I’ve been thinking about a lot:

I don’t believe any of the current narratives actually really work for why some countries experienced drastically different outcomes than others with Covid. Yes, I think masks work, but perhaps only on the margins in many cases. And the same with test and trace.

My pet theory: there are two main factors influencing better outcomes with Covid. The first is past exposure to similar respiratory viruses, ones that didn’t cause mass (or any) sickness, but thereby granted sterilizing immunity to much of the population. This would explain most of Asia and even Australia and New Zealand’s results (much travel from the region both ways). They defeated Covid simply by having a vastly easier battle.

The second important factor is age composition of countries combined with obesity. If your country is old and fat and you lacked any pre-existing immunity, you were gonna have a bad time.

This is the only way I can make sense of any of the data. Sure, lockdowns have some effect (especially early on), yes masks do work, yada yada, but with a highly-transmissible respiratory virus, only on the margins.

I bet I am right, but it’ll never be confirmed because it contradicts existing narratives and doctrine.