Does this board connect the pins between both sides?

Judging from the layout document and the white lines no I don't think it connects the two sides but you could easily use a solid core jumper wire to connect the two sides like connecting the two chips via I2C and you could easily add pull up resistors if you had more I2C devices on that bus as well or add any number of buttons switches capacitors chips leds etc. I believe the ground pin, vcc pin and aref 3v3 pins are connected along those bottom rows on each board following those white lines since those will likely be needed. I think this is just designed for projects that are going to need more than one esp32 there is a tripler as well. I know this is late as hell but I'm adding this comment for anyone else who is confused.