It is all about perspective as you called out. Make note I called out issues, I called out where, and I provided suggestions to improve the analysis.

I also called out his bias, and showed where his analysis could be skewed.

Demographics, Density, and Data are the three things required to make the analysis happen and is critical with this type of problem.

He neglects two of the three and scratches the surface to a third and doesn’t show a lot of data from experts in the field to back his analysis.

His comparison on data population sets do matter very much. Controlling a population of an island with 1.4 million people and comparing it to a DFW metroplex inland is better than comparing to to a geographic comparison 300x different. How accurate will that data be?

As for your political bias, make note I included both California and Texas for the comparison to Italy allowing two different models in the data to compare to Italy which followed a similar pattern … ignorance to full lock down to limited release.

For your reference, I do modeling and scientific work on large scale user bases in the tens to hundreds of millions. I have had very good success in my projects modeling user bases in the 100–200K population sets up to 45 million subscribers with a 1–3% accuracy prediction.

As a note, I have forwarded with positive remarks to others on his economic topics saying yeah this guy is right. His document is the start of a good first draft, not a final one. His bias is strong,

I have had SARS and MERS, I have allergic asthma and the immunotherapy drugs I am as caused high blood pressure. I have a farm where we have dealt with infectious diseases (Strangles and Rabies). I also get the American experience as I have traveled extensively to Europe and the UK and all over the USA. (e.g. I had apartments in the Bay Area and had a farm in Indiana) travelling between the two …

So if this was one of your students, how would you grade the paper?