...than states with fewer restrictions.  Not only that, big states also tended to post better economic growth numbers in 2020 than states with fewer restrictions.  So says a report from UCLA's Anderson School of Management:
http://news.yahoo.com/lockdown-states-like-california-did-better-economically-than-looser-states-like-florida-new-covid-data-shows-153025163.html

…then you can discard it. The media is simply not capable of reporting on science. Science has its own publications, like Scientific American, Science magazine and Nature. You should only refer to these kind of publications for anything scientific.

Scientific American: As a consumer magazine, Scientific American is not a peer-reviewed journal. It is editorially independent from any other publication, but is a member of the corporate family known as the Nature Publishing Group, part of the Macmillan company.
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Generally speaking, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN presents ideas that have already been published in the peer-reviewed technical literature. We [Sci Am] do not publish new theories or results of original research.
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From this and other submission instructions on the Sci Am pages one may conclude that the manuscripts undergo a general review that is probably aimed at accuracy and style, which is different than typical scientific peer-review of original research.

I am shocked. SHOCKED!