What they are saying is that different states responded differently at different times (you may remember), but that the rise in unemployment was pretty uniform, despite the differences in policy and the differences in the impact of the disease. Now, you can twist on that hook as long as you want, but it appears that the data supports them. If that's the case, then government shutdowns
can't be the uniform cause of sudden increases in employment. As they say, it wasn't that they had no effect; it's that the effect had
already started before any state took action.
This is actually very similar to findings about service businesses. Most of them had
already lost gigantic numbers of customers before any shutdowns took place. The population was, iow, voting with their feet once the scope and danger of the virus became evident. And, of course, they still are. See:
https://slate.com/business/2020/05/south-reopening-restaurants-coronavirus-opentable.html
Apparently, Americans do have as much sense as the Chinese! Who knew?