A key part of the argument here seems to be that certain people were inclined to take precautions or not take precautions and government mandates didn't change

A key part of the argument here seems to be that certain people were inclined to take precautions or not take precautions and government mandates didn't change things much. But that doesn't pass the smell test to me. My employer told everyone we had to work from home but that's because I have a really good employer. Huge numbers of people were told "you're going to be fired if you stay home" right up until the government mandated that people stay home. The number of people with that experience is so large that any analysis which finds them to be irrelevant is probably overlooking things.