The CDC received some criticism for its junk science on masks, particularly for its false claims about the benefits of masking schoolchildren, but the press mostly promoted the agencys narrative. When Youve Been Fully Vaccinated. Virginia. CNBC called the nations early Covid response a master class in science communication, and last fall it was praised for tightening its mask mandate in an Atlantic article, Four Measures That Are Helping Germany Beat Covid. Its stricter mandate early last year banished cloth masks, requiring surgical masks instead, and the states of Berlin and Bavaria went still further, requiring masks of N95 quality. Jocelyn Solis-Moreira is a journalist specializing in health and science news. New Zealands prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, called it a validation of the countrys go hard, go early strategy, in which the country reacts rapidly to signs of community spread. We show that mask mandates are associated with a statistically significant decrease in new cases (-3.55 per 100K), deaths (-0.13 per 100K), and the proportion of hospital admissions (-2.38 percentage points) up to 40 days after the introduction of mask mandates both at the state and county level. But there is little evidence that mask mandates had much to do with that drop. Masks prevent you from inhaling or exhaling viral droplets that can linger in the air. Methodology, Most states in the low quartile had high COVID-19 rates in the subsequent month. Cases dropped in late July, but since then Texas has eased efforts to contain the virus, and cases are rising again. 2021. It is worth noting that no states achieved this level of mask adherence in September, which might account in part for the spike in COVID-19 rates in October. here. According to Werler, Arizona's data was unexpected. New York. On the other hand, Hawaii and Connecticut had two of the longest mask mandates and also some of the lowest per capita case counts of all the states. Copyright: 2021 Fischer et al. But as Miller shows in his book, the policies made no discernible difference. Wearing a mask may still give some people a sense of security, but they could breathe more easily if theyd face the facts. R-0 may be the most important scientific term youve never heard of when it comes to stopping the coronavirus pandemic. We observed some benefit of mask policy on COVID-19 rates, but the findings were unstable. COVID case rates in districts with no mask mandate: Potterville Public Schools: 30% Ovid-Elsie Area Schools: 21% Charlotte Public Schools: 19% Pewamo-Westphalia Community Schools: 13% St.. Here's what it could mean for all of us. The. States and cities are reinstating restrictions and implementing new ones: In recent days, the governors of Iowa, North Dakota and Utah imposed mask mandates for the first time since the outbreak began. The question is and Im sure thats the conversation now happening in the halls of power what do we do next? Higher mask use did not predict lower maximum growth rates, smaller surges, or . "There are over 200 percent more cases in a school (district) that does not have a mask mandate," said Dr. Catherine Troisi, an. According to Werler, Arizonas data was unexpected. For policies on physical distancing, we recorded whether a stay-at-home order was issued and, if so, when. Daniella Amato is a biomedical scientist and fact checker with expertise in pharmaceuticals and clinical research. By contrast, Florida has no statewide restrictions. By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira Now, nearly one in 10 North Dakotans have tested positive about a third of those in the past two weeks and one in 1,000 have died of the virus. "We feel the time is right to make this . Despite an early outbreak, South Korea flattened the curve with aggressive testing and contact tracing, as well as widespread mask wearing. 2.18.2022 4:30 PM. At its highest level of containment efforts, New York state scored an 80 on the index. Many states in the Upper Midwest and Mountain West resisted more stringent control measures, like limits on gatherings and mask mandates. The adoption of universal masking policies is increasingly polarized and politicized, demanding that public health authorities balance the values of health and individual liberty. If youre still not convinced to take off the mask, consider one more graph from Miller. If you add up all the numbers on those two lines, you find that the mask mandates made zero difference. Indeed all 13 states in the low mask adherence group in September had high COVID-19 rates in October. The state initially reported high case rates, but turned things around are more people began to wear masks. Research suggests that mandatory mask-wearing policies correlated with a lower number of COVID-19 infections and deaths. I just dont know based on reading the OAN summary how they came to the same conclusions because the CDC conclusions were favorable.. The proportions of states with high COVID-19 rates are shown for those in the low and high quartiles of mask adherence in the preceding month (Fig 1). When the initial spring wave in 2020 subsided, public officials and journalists claimed that the mandates had worked, and they kept up the pretense even when Covid surged again later that year despite the continuing mandates. An Annals of Epidemiology study published last May found that mask mandates in the United States were associated with lower transmission rates from June through September 2020. Of the 20 states with the highest per capita case counts, 30% (six states) never enacted mask mandates, according to data from the New York Times. As of Aug. 3, Louisiana is under a temporary statewide mask mandate required of all people, including those who are vaccinated, when indoors. Jocelyn Solis-Moreira is a journalist specializing in health and science news. Our research examines mask wearing policy and adherence in association with COVID-19 case rates. Mask mandates are associated with reductions in COVID-19 case and hospitalization growth rates (6,7), whereas reopening on-premises dining at restaurants, a known risk factor associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection (2), is associated with increased COVID-19 cases and deaths, particularly in the absence of mask mandates (8). Yes Massachusetts. While it controlled for other policies that have been used to try to mitigate new infections from the coronavirus including bar closures, stay-at-home orders and bans on gatherings of 10 or more people it did not account for some others, such as physical distancing recommendations and other types of business closures. Data Availability: Data are available in the paper and its Supporting Information file. Note: Cases and hospitalizations are data from Nov. 16. The strongest real-world evidence in favor of general masking comes from a randomized trial in Bangladesh, which found that the use of surgical masks reduced symptomatic infections by 11 percent. Only eight states reported that 75% or more people wore masks between June and September, leading to fewer COVID cases: States with a 75% minimum mask adherence reported about 109.26 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents compared to the average of 249.99 per 100,000 residents in states with low mask adherence. Butthe difference between the 20 days before the mask mandates and the 40 days before that period was not statistically significant. Jacob Sullum "Their perspective on the study and results to me are contrary to what was stated in the actual study itself," Bisesi said. The announcement comes one day after Joe Biden pleaded with state and local leaders to maintain or reinstate mask mandates, due to recent alarming trends in US coronavirus case numbers. Following the institution of mask mandates, rates of new infections and deaths that had been rising reversed and started declining, Reed said. Our study was also limited by the lack of information on accessibility of COVID-19 testing; if less accessible testing is associated with less mask adherence, the associations we report here may be under-estimates. ", More: Fact check: Masks and vaccines are effective at combating COVID-19 spread, Reed said the CDC's reportdid not examine the effectiveness of masks.. "Masks have been the most visible part of America's pandemic response, but one of the least consequential," science journalist Faye Flam writes in a Bloomberg Opinion essay. In the first 20 days after implementingmask mandates, new cases slowed by 0.5 percentage points. Investigation, Theyre not looking at masks in and of themselves," Josh Petrie, research professor in the University of Michigan's School of Public Health, told USA TODAY. New infections have stayed among the lowest in the country, adjusted for population though cases now are rising in New York as they are everywhere. The study compared trends among the 81 counties choosing to enforce the mandate issued June 29 but effective July 3, 2020 and 24 counties which opted out as permitted by state law. For a while, the residents were spared. The cumulative rate of infection over the course of the pandemic was about 24 percent in the mandate states as well as in the non-mandate states. Across the country, indoor mask requirements in blue states are falling like dominoes as COVID cases drop. The United States, as of Friday, posted a seven-day moving average of 62,555 new COVID-19 cases reported daily, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The last time . Writing original draft. Mask adherence was classified as low if in the lowest quartile and as high if in the highest quartile. For each month, the distributions of mask adherence across all 50 states and D.C. were categorized into quartiles, meaning the cut-off values for each quartile may be different from one month to another. So could age demographics: The median age of Florida's population is 42.5, compared to 37 in California. The global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 has overwhelmed health care systems, marked by peak numbers of hospital and intensive care unit admissions and deaths [1,2]. Discover a faster, simpler path to publishing in a high-quality journal. Higher mask use (rather than mandates per se) has been argued to decrease COVID-19 growth rates. Larry Hogan called on the State Board of Education to . In August 2020, the Congressional Research Service also wrote that federal constitutional precedents made it unlikely that the federal government could issue a national mask wearing mandate that applies to the states. Many experts acknowledge that the rise and fall of waves is a bit of a mystery.". Given the situation during the omicron surge, there are additional reasons to doubt that mask mandates, even with perfect compliance, had much of an impact. Specifically, we created the following categories: >15% non-Hispanic Black, >15% Hispanic, median age >40 years, and population density >200 people per square mile, which corresponded to 74.5%, 78.4%, 82.4%, and 78.4% of the distributions, respectively. Miller, who has tracked pandemic trends for the Brownstone Institute, has assembled the damning evidence in Unmasked: The Global Failure of COVID Mask Mandates. "Unfortunately, the virus hasnt gone away and is still easily transmissible. [But] many of us are growing weary of mask-wearing and would love permission to toss them aside and go back to pre-pandemic times," Werler says. Using an index that tracks policy responses to the pandemic, these charts show the number of new virus cases and hospitalizations in each state relative to the states recent containment measures. Fully vaccinated people should continue following CDC guidelines, including wearing their masks in crowded areas and when around unvaccinated people. I think timing really matters for the decisions.. The Bangladesh study, in other words, does not demonstrate the effectiveness of the cloth masks that adults tend to pull out of their pockets when they enter businesses, let alone the masks that children as young as 2 are forced to wear in schools and day care centers. Maskaholics in the press are calling for permanent masking on trains, planes, and buses. Conceptualization, February 28, 2023 at 5:55 am EST. No, PLOS is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation, #C2354500, based in San Francisco, California, US, Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249891, https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admissions, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html, https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/these-are-the-states-with-mask-mandates, https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/, https://cepr.org/sites/default/files/CovidEconomics43.pdf, https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=mask-use&tab=trend, https://doi.org/10.18148/srm/2020.v14i2.7761, https://data.cdc.gov/Case-Surveillance/United-States-COVID-19-Cases-and-Deaths-by-State-o/9mfq-cb36/data, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/county-level-data-sets/download-data/, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/indicators.html#thresholds, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/index.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fneed-extra-precautions%2Fpeople-at-increased-risk.html. She holds a Masters in Psychology concentrating on Behavioral Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249891.s001. Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States of America, Roles Like the debate about lockdowns, the debate about mask mandates will continue. That period is used as the benchmark against which researchers compared days 21 through 60 before mask mandates were adoptedand the 100 days after. The proportions of states and D.C. with high COVID-19 rates were greatest for those with no mask wearing policy for the general public in the preceding month (Fig 2). Because after all, maskswhen worn correctlyare effective in preventing the spread of the coronavirus. The list of states with high COVID-19 rates by month shows the initial wave in northeastern states in May, followed by a wave in southern states, and then spreading across the U.S. over the next four months (Table 2).