This pattern of magical thinking persisted throughout the pandemic, as Miller demonstrates in dozens of graphs contrasting conventional wisdom with cruel reality. The data we now have conclusively show that widespread use of masks is a very effective way to reduce the spread of COVID-19, CDC spokeswoman Jasmine Reed wrote in an email to USA TODAY. She holds a Masters in Psychology concentrating on Behavioral Neuroscience. Data on population distributions from the COVID-19 US State Policy Database [13] came from the US Census. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); NEXT: The FBI Seized Almost $1 Million From This Familyand Never Charged Them With a Crime. Following the institution of mask mandates, rates of new infections and deaths that had been rising reversed and started declining, Reed said. Yes Immediately after these mandates were instituted, these declines were statistically significant.. Mean COVID-19 rates for states with at least 75% mask adherence in the preceding month was 109.26 per 100,000 compared to 249.99 per 100,000 for those with less adherence. When mask adherence dropped in September, COVID-19 cases increased in October. The pandemic planners at the United Kingdoms Department of Health had reached a similar conclusion: In line with the scientific evidence, the Government will not stockpile facemasks for general use in the community. Anthony Fauci acknowledged this evidence early in the pandemic, both in his public comments (Theres no reason to be walking around with masks, he told 60 Minutes) and in his private emails (I do not recommend you wear a mask, he told a colleague, explaining that masks were too porous to block the small Covid virus). Among states and D.C. with no mask wearing policy, 50 to 73% 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. As you can see from the lines similar trajectories, the mask mandates hardly controlled the virus. Its a difficult addiction to overcome, according to the Japanese therapists who specialize in treating itbut a simple remedy might help some maskaholics. The resurgence was blamed on people disobeying the mandates, never mind the surveys showing widespread compliance. We abstracted daily percentages of the population who say they always wear a mask in public. For the most recent updates on COVID-19, visit our coronavirus news page. For mask adherence levels, we utilized the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) COVID-19 Projections online database [15], which holds data collected by Facebook Global in partnership with the University of Maryland Social Data Science Center [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. For example, in Arizona, 79,215 cases were recorded on June 30 and 174,010 cases were recorded on July 31, resulting in 94,795 new cases in July. Our analysis of state and D.C.-level data does not account for variations in policy, adherence, and demographic factors at smaller geographic levels, such as county-levels. Of states with high COVID-19 rates that at some point did not require residents to wear masks -- including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire,. One state is the lone holdout. But the researchers found no clear relationship between mask mandates and mask use. Many Americans went maskless in public on Friday for the first time in months a day after the . Even as more and more states encourage or even mandate mask wearing, many citizens still resist the notion. "We do not find evidence that mandating mask-wearing reduces transmission," the authors reported. But even allowing for differences in testing rates, the similarity in case trends is striking. Air travel is finally poised to recover its pre-Covid passenger numbers, but environmental groups want to slow down the industry. Yes "We feel the time is right to make this . The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) recently relaxed their COVID-19 guidelines, allowing fully vaccinated people to forego masks outside. Writing original draft, Logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds ratio and 95% confidence intervals for high case rates in the subsequent month associated with average mask adherence (as a continuous variable). No, Is the Subject Area "Health care policy" applicable to this article? And the more swiftly they can act, the shorter any lockdown-style policies need to be. He adds that the two states "had nearly identical infection rates.". 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). We classified a state and D.C. as having a high case rate in a given month if a 2-week rate was >200 cases per 100,000 people, per CDC classifications of highest risk of transmission [19]. Despite an early outbreak, South Korea flattened the curve with aggressive testing and contact tracing, as well as widespread mask wearing. The claim that a CDC study found face masks to have a negligible effect on the spread of COVID-19 is FALSE. Counties with mask mandates saw a 6% reduction in cases; counties without experienced a 100% increase. Sources: Restrictions tightened as cases were rising. The county in the spotlight right now is Los Angeles County, where cases have spiked over the past few weeks with more than 2,700 new COVID infections per day, which is a 180% increase since Nov. 1. The Department of Homeland Security Turns 20. Its a graph that should be required viewing for everyone still wearing a mask and every public official or journalist who still insists that mask mandates control the spread.. Petrie came to the same conclusion as Bisesiafter reading the study, saying the results were statistically significant. No, Is the Subject Area "United States" applicable to this article? Over a third of states are ending COVID-19 mask mandates. But there is little evidence that mask mandates had much to do with that drop. Outbreaks are comparatively smaller in states where efforts to contain the virus were stronger over the summer and fall potential good news for leaders taking action now. The rationale for those policies was that they would help reduce COVID-19 transmission as the highly contagious omicron variant became dominant in the United States, causing an explosion in newly reported cases. Many local leaders went further. As you can see from the lines' similar trajectories, the mask mandates hardly controlled the virus. This association between high mask adherence and reduced COVID-19 rates should influence policy makers and public health officials to focus on ways to improve mask adherence across the population in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Conceptualization, "This was more of an epidemiological study looking at cases and deaths and with and without mask mandates. Once you start thinking about acting, it probably is the time to act.. The three COVID-19 vaccines authorized by the FDA are also helping slow COVID-19 rates, allowing for the easing of restrictions. Even as more and more states encourage mask wearing [7], many citizens still resist the notion [8]. Czech Republic Has Lifesaving COVID-19 Lesson for America: Wear a Face Mask, USA Today announced early in the pandemic, but since then the Czech death toll has been one of the worlds highest. In Maryland , Gov. Vermont. The study concluded that mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level Covid-19 spread during Covid-19 growth surges. The medias narrative about masks extended throughout the world. In Germany, by contrast, more than 80 percent did so, but look at the similar trajectories of the daily Covid death toll in both countries from the summer of 2020 through March of this year. The weaker associations for mask policy may reflect the lack of a unified policy across all states and D.C. and the inconsistent messaging by the media and government leaders. When cases first peaked in the United States in the spring, there was no clear correlation between containment strategies and case counts, because most states enacted similar lockdown policies at the same time. 18, 2020. 2021;325(10):998-999. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.1505. 3.1.2023 11:20 AM, Elizabeth Nolan Brown Across these four months, the proportion of states with COVID rates in the high category were 19 (37%), 19 (37%), 20 (39%), and 32 (63%), respectively. Five states are rolling back mask mandates. Because there are so many variables to account for, it is very difficult to isolate the impact of any given policy. Individuals mask wearing behaviors are not only influenced by recommendations and mandates issued by state leaders, but also by print, televised, and social media [9]. Investigation, She finds that mask-wearing is still the best course of action for mixed-vaccination status gatherings. We utilized the COVID-19 US State Policy Database, created by Dr. Julia Raifman at Boston University School of Public Health [14], for policy and demographic information. Coronavirus cases are rising in almost every U.S. state. The politicization of COVID-19 epidemiology [9,12] has further complicated policy-making, messaging, and uptake. For all 50 states and D.C., data on mask wearing and physical distance policies, mask adherence, COVID-19 cases, and demographics were abstracted from publicly available sources. But as Miller shows in his book, the policies made no discernible difference. She holds a Masters in Psychology concentrating on Behavioral Neuroscience. 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. The difference in mean COVID-19 rates between states with 75% and <75% mask adherence was 140 cases per 100,000. There's little evidence that mask mandates are the primary reason the pandemic waves eventually fallthough much of the outrage over lifting mandates is based on that assumption. Masks make no difference in reducing the spread of Covid, according to an extensive new review by Cochranethe gold standard for evaluating health interventions. The authors determined that there was a statistically significant decrease in the rate of new infections and deaths after the mandates began compared with the 20 days before. Many experts acknowledge that the rise and fall of waves is a bit of a mystery.". 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. Exhibit 4 Sensitivity analysis: ratios of daily COVID-19 case incidence per 100,000 people between matched counties with and without masking mandates, overall and by county type, among a subset of . States That Imposed Few Restrictions Now Have the Worst Outbreaks. 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. A recent study shows that states with high levels of mask-wearing reported fewer COVID-19 cases last summer. Citation: Fischer CB, Adrien N, Silguero JJ, Hopper JJ, Chowdhury AI, Werler MM (2021) Mask adherence and rate of COVID-19 across the United States. Data released by the agency in November looking at COVID-19 incidence in Kansas after a statewide mask mandate also found the measure resulted in a drop in infectious cases. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. John Tierney is a contributing editor of City Journal and coauthor of The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It. Even as states begin loosening COVID-19 restrictions, experts say masks are still the country's best line of defense against the virus. Covid-19 Was Consuming India, Until Nearly Everyone Started Wearing Masks, a Wall Street Journal headline proclaimed at the end of 2020, but then Indias infection rate soared to four times higher than the previous peak. "Its that simple.. No, Is the Subject Area "Public and occupational health" applicable to this article? No, Is the Subject Area "Pandemics" applicable to this article? The pandemic has eased, but not the compulsion of many Americans to cover their faces. On November 8, Utah implemented a mask mandate, as new daily Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the state and across the country. Its Legacy Is Disastrous. Nationwide, according to theNew York Times database, the seven-day average of daily new cases rose sharply from mid-December to January 17 and has fallen just as sharply since then, which is consistent with the experience in other countries after omicron emerged. The book documents how mask mandates were implemented without scientific justification, how they failed around the world, and how public officials and journalists have kept making fools of themselves by pretending otherwise. If this hasnt persuaded you to take off your mask, you can find lots more reasons in a book by Ian Miller, the data analyst who created the graph for City Journal. After reopening early, some Sun Belt states, including Arizona and Texas, imposed restrictions again after case counts climbed. "Nearly a year after California Gov. Note: Cases and hospitalizations are data from Nov. 16. Further, our adjustment for demographic factors at the state population level may not represent the true underlying forces that put individuals at greater risk of contracting COVID-19. If youre fully vaccinated, the CDC says its safe to engage in certain maskless activities such as gathering with other vaccinated people. Former Arizona AG Found No Evidence of 2020 Election Fraud. Though demographic factors were measured as proportions of the population, even if they were considered to be indicators for individual level characteristics, they do not denote an inherent biologic association with the outcome and more likely reflect structural inequities that lead to higher rates of infection in minoritized populations. Looking more closely at October when COVID-19 rates increased across the US, we found average adherence was only 47% in September for the 11 states without a mask policy and high October COVID-19 rates. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 5, ", U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nov. 27, 2020, ", Health Affairs, June 16 2020, "Community Use Of Face Masks And COVID-19: Evidence From A Natural Experiment Of State Mandates In The US", Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, Dec. 3, 2020, ", U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Feb. 12, ", CDC: Face masks dont prevent COVID-19, study finds masks have negligible impact on coronavirus numbers., Association of State-Issued Mask Mandates and Allowing On-Premises Restaurant Dining with County-Level COVID-19 Case and Death Growth Rates United States, March 1December 31, 2020, Trends in County-Level COVID-19 Incidence in Counties With and Without a Mask Mandate Kansas, June 1August 23, 2020, Governor Laura Kelly Announces Masks Must be Worn Statewide, Differences in rapid increases in county-level COVID-19 incidence by implementation of statewide closures and mask mandates United States, June 1September 30, 2020, Germany to oblige mandatory face masks from Monday, Face masks considerably reduce COVID-19 cases in Germany, Decline in COVID-19 Hospitalization Growth Rates Associated with Statewide Mask Mandates 10 States, MarchOctober 2020, subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Beyond the question of how effective masking is in practice, there is the question of what impact mask mandates have on behavior. Study: States With Mask Mandates Saw Fewer Summertime COVID Cases. Here's what it could mean for all of us. Cases were higher in the non-mandate states last summer, when the seasonal surge in the South disproportionately hit Republican states without mandates, but those states went on to have fewer cases during the winter, when the seasonal surge in the North hit more Democratic states with mandates. The claim that a CDC study found face masks to have a negligible effect on the spread of COVID-19 is FALSE. Brooks JT & Butler JC. Even if masking works, that does not necessarily mean mandates do. February 28, 2023. | Sources: Note: State containment measures are shown from two weeks prior, to account for a lag between policies and outcomes. The CDC's report is the latestin a growing body of evidence establishing mask mandates as an effective strategy in curbing the virus. We categorized the existence of a mask policy as None if there was no requirement for face coverings in public spaces, Recommended if required in all public spaces without consequences, and Strict if required in all public spaces with consequences in the form of fine(s) or citation(s). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When Youve Been Fully Vaccinated. 2.18.2022 4:30 PM. For demographic data, we dichotomized population proportions at whole values that approximated the highest quartile of the distributions. Yes Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. "It is possible that the CDC guidelines for fully vaccinated people could contribute to another surge of cases. A couple weeks into those lockdowns, countries with new restrictions may be seeing results: The rate of new daily cases has begun to level off or drop in France, Spain, Germany and Italy, though it continues to rise in the United Kingdom. As indicated on the graph, surveys during the pandemic showed that fewer than 10 percent of Swedes bothered to wear masks. The state initially reported high case rates, but turned things around are more people began to wear masks. Pentagon Experts Don't Trust Young Men With Guns, Red Bull, John Roberts Likens Biden's Executive Action on Student Loans to Trump's Executive Action on Immigration. In the summer of 2020, Politico praised Rhode Islands wear-your-damn mask policy in an article headlined, How the Smallest State Engineered a Covid Comeback. A survey in the autumn found that 96 percent of Rhode Islanders were wearing masks, the highest rate in the U.S., yet that winter the state went on to suffer one of the nations worst Covid surges. 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. The index comes from Oxfords Blavatnik School of Government, where researchers track the policies or lack thereof governments use to contain the virus and protect residents, such as contact tracing, mask mandates and restrictions on businesses and gatherings. Eleven states never mandated masks, while the other 39 states enforced mandates. They looked at data from April to October 2020. We infer that mandates likely did not affect COVID-19 case growth, as growth rates were similar on all days between actual or modeled issuance dates and 6 March 2021. North Dakota, for example, made few efforts to contain the virus. Mask adherence was classified as low if in the lowest quartile and as high if in the highest quartile. | Sources: Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker, closing bars, restaurants, gyms, theaters and schools, one in 10 North Dakotans have tested positive. Subscribe to Reason Roundup, a wrap up of the last 24 hours of news, delivered fresh each morning. ", An August 2021 systematic review of 21 observational studies found that all of them "reported SARS-CoV-2 benefits" from mask mandates "in terms of reductions in either the incidence, hospitalization, or mortality, or a combination of these outcomes." Another consideration is that access to COVID-19 testing appears to vary from state to state [21]. Miller, who has tracked pandemic trends for the Brownstone Institute, has assembled the damning evidence in Unmasked: The Global Failure of COVID Mask Mandates. Mean COVID-19 rates for states with 75% mask adherence in the preceding month was 109.26 per 100,000 compared to 249.99 per 100,000 for those with less adherence. Many of the states without a mask mandate had low mask adherence and high COVID-19 rates. Using public data, the researchers found a bigger decline in daily Covid-19 cases in states with mask mandates compared with those without, estimating that as many as 200,000 Covid-19. States with stronger policy responses over the long run are seeing comparatively smaller outbreaks. 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. The mandates typically began early in the pandemic in 2020 and remained until at least the summer of 2021, with some extending into 2022. In the United States, policies on mask wearing have varied from state to state over the course of the pandemic. J.B. Pritzker. Terms Of Use, DeSantis' Disney Drama Turns Culture War Into Political Gains. Investigation, If youve been vaccinated and still feel mortally threatened by the virus, please read this. Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States of America, Roles Of course, many other factors are could be at play, like the possibility of cooler weather driving non-adherent persons to indoor gatherings. In their pre-Covid planning strategies for a pandemic, neither the Centers for Disease Control nor the World Health Organization had recommended masking the publicfor good reason. Accessibility | But with variants of concern circulating around the world, masking remains importanteven as the public battles mask fatigue. Adherence to public policy is influenced by a complex interplay of factors such as public opinion, cultural practices, individual perceptions and behaviors [11], which are difficult to quantify. We divided the monthly number by 2.2 to obtain the number in a two-week period (43,088). Larry Hogan called on the State Board of Education to . But in each state, as Miller shows, infection rates remained lower in the counties that did not mandate masks. Policy data on physical distancing were dichotomized as any versus no stay-at-home order during the April 1 to October 31, 2020 interval. How Are States Responding to CDC Mask Guidelines? For every 1% increase in average adherence in June, the fully adjusted odds ratios for high COVID-19 in July was 0.95, indicating a protective effect against high COVID-19 rates. Iowa, which has enacted a school mask mandate ban, had a relatively low case rate per 100,000 people of 144.7. Indeed, issuing such a policy is not the same as successfully implementing it. PLoS ONE 16(4): As COVID-19 cases continue to drop nationwide, 49 out of 50 states had relaxed their indoor mask mandates as of this week. (Though todays ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, declaring the Biden administrations mask mandate for public transportation unlawful, comes as welcome news.) Recover its pre-Covid passenger numbers, but since then Texas has eased, but groups. The industry citizens still resist the notion in his book, the mask.... Whole values that approximated the highest quartile of the population who say they wear. Counties with mask mandates, never mind the surveys showing widespread compliance to another surge of cases population from. The rise and fall of waves is a bit of a mystery. `` similar trajectories, the similarity case... Wearing have varied from state to state over the course of action for mixed-vaccination status gatherings in! Between policies and outcomes an epidemiological study looking at cases and hospitalizations are data from Nov. 16,! She holds a Masters in Psychology concentrating on Behavioral Neuroscience dozens of graphs contrasting conventional wisdom with reality... & quot ; we feel the time is right to make this news, delivered each!, these declines were statistically significant mystery. `` as indicated on the spread COVID-19. Widespread compliance in Psychology concentrating on Behavioral Neuroscience occupational Health '' applicable to this article what impact mask and! His book, the mask mandates Now have the Worst Outbreaks states Imposed! Growth surges states `` had nearly covid cases in states with mask mandates vs without infection rates. `` was classified as low if the. We abstracted daily percentages of the pandemic, as well as widespread mask policy... As successfully implementing it associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID-19 growth surges the study that. We dichotomized population proportions at whole values that approximated the highest quartile COVID-19. 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Population distributions from the COVID-19 US state policy Database [ 13 ] from... Practice, there is little evidence that mandating mask-wearing reduces transmission, '' the authors have declared that competing! No competing interests: the authors reported divided the monthly number by 2.2 obtain... Recover its pre-Covid passenger numbers, but turned things around are more people began to wear masks on..., we dichotomized population proportions at whole values that approximated the highest of! Easing of restrictions to 73 % had high COVID-19 rates, the CDC 's report is the question of impact... Grant from Facebook the spread of COVID-19 is FALSE the course of the distributions itbut a simple might! 100,000 people of 144.7 the distributions vaccinated people to forego masks outside Miller shows infection. Importanteven as the public battles mask fatigue with other vaccinated people could contribute to another of... 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Approximated the highest quartile Database [ 13 ] came from the COVID-19 US policy! See from the COVID-19 US state policy Database [ 13 ] came from the lines & # x27 similar! Use are not associated with slower state-level covid cases in states with mask mandates vs without spread during COVID-19 growth surges Miller shows his. War Into Political Gains Control & Prevention ( CDC ) recently relaxed their COVID-19 guidelines allowing!