I'm not sure what California has to do with the point I was making? Anyway, it's problematic because around half of the total recorded deaths for New York stat

I'm not sure what California has to do with the point I was making? Anyway, it's problematic because around half of the total recorded deaths for New York state, for the entire pandemic up to now, likely resulted from infections that happened during the no/minimal restrictions period in March of 2020. Presumably the original poster wanted a "strong restrictions" vs "light restrictions" comparison w.r.t. to deaths. And that's fine; it's just that New York is going to give you a poor starting point for that comparison unless you dive deeper.