The estimated absolute change in cumulative case rate associated with lifting the mask mandate, remains 28.1 (30.6%) 21 days after lifting the mask mandate. Little attention was paid to more rigorous research, like a review of the literature that found little or no benefit from masks, or a study that compared infection rates with mask policies and with rates of mask use in all 50 states over the first year of the pandemic. But the researchers found no clear relationship between mask mandates and mask use. Over the course of the pandemic, both Iowa and Florida have done better than the national average in measures of Covid mortality as well as overall excess mortality (the number of deaths more than normal from all causes). Massachusetts. Wearing masks is a CDC-recommended* approach to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), by reducing the spread of respiratory droplets into the air when a person coughs, sneezes, or talks and by reducing the inhalation of these droplets by the wearer. Although Hawaiis governor did not issue a mask wearing policy until after October 2020, we considered that state to have a policy because mayors of the four populous counties had mandated mask wearing earlier in the pandemic. Writing review & editing, Affiliation 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. The graph for New York, which also had a statewide mask mandate, looks very much like the graph for California, but with an earlier peak. We abstracted data on whether the state issued a mandate of mask use by all individuals in public spaces, and if so, the dates of implementation and whether the mandate was enforced by fines or criminal charge/citation(s). When mask adherence dropped in September, COVID-19 cases increased in October. Because there are so many variables to account for, it is very difficult to isolate the impact of any given policy. May 16, 2021 / 7:07 AM / CBS News. Over a third of states are ending COVID-19 mask mandates. Over the course of the pandemic, the scientific evidence and our understanding of masks have grown. Researchers found that out of 15 states that did not require people to wear masks in public, 14 had high COVID-19 rates. | Sources: Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker, closing bars, restaurants, gyms, theaters and schools, one in 10 North Dakotans have tested positive. "Their perspective on the study and results to me are contrary to what was stated in the actual study itself," Bisesi said. Methodology, "Large indoor gatherings without masking among a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons is a recipe for trouble.". We show supporting evidence for reducing the spread of COVID-19 through mask wearing. broad scope, and wide readership a perfect fit for your research every time. | Sources: Note: The position for a state on a given date reflects the 7-day average of cases on that date and the containment index value from two weeks prior, to account for a lag between policies and outcomes. If youre still not convinced to take off the mask, consider one more graph from Miller. We calculated the average mask use percentage by month for AprilSeptember, 2020. Subscribe to Reason Roundup, a wrap up of the last 24 hours of news, delivered fresh each morning. 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. A relationship between policies and the outbreaks severity has become more clear as the pandemic has progressed. Mr. Hale said the Oxford data makes it clear that acting quickly and forcefully is the best shot governments have to combat the virus. Rhode Island. The strongest association was for mask adherence in September; for every 1% increase in average adherence, the odds of a high COVID-19 case rate decreased by 26%. Yes Read on to find out whyand to ensure . The question is and Im sure thats the conversation now happening in the halls of power what do we do next? Among states and D.C. with no mask wearing policy, 50 to 73% had high COVID-19 rates in the subsequent month. Eight states were reported to have at least 75% mask adherence in any month between June and September (AZ, CT, HI, MA, NY, RI, VT, VA); none reported a high COVID-19 rate in the subsequent month. If this is true, we would expect associations between mask adherence and high COVID-19 rates to be even stronger. What theyre looking at here is efficacy of mask mandates. But in each state, as Miller shows, infection rates remained lower in the counties that did not mandate masks. 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 . Texas locked down in the spring, when it had relatively few cases, then reopened quickly. | This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Methodology, Eleven states had no stay-at-home order, 15 had no mask policy, and four states had low adherence throughout this six-month period. Of note, there were no states with 75% in September. Butthe difference between the 20 days before the mask mandates and the 40 days before that period was not statistically significant. Gov. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249891, Editor: Wen-Jun Tu, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, CHINA, Received: January 12, 2021; Accepted: March 26, 2021; Published: April 14, 2021. Should You Wear a Mask at Outdoor Events? Vermont. Fully vaccinated adults are still wearing masks on their solitary walks outdoors, and officials have beenenforcing mask mandates on airline passengers and on some city-dwellers and students. Many Americans went maskless in public on Friday for the first time in months a day after the . For example, mask wearing in the two weeks before rates begin to rise might be a more sensitive way to measure the association. They looked at data from April to October 2020. Writing original draft, If you've seen pictures of those kids, you know they are not necessarily using masks as intended. 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. They continued to fall over the 100 days analyzed in the study. + Caption. Costs vs. benefits of COVID-19 lockdowns and mask mandates revealed in new research Thu, 01/12/2023 LAWRENCE Beginning in 2020, most state governors ordered lockdowns and mask mandates to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) recently relaxed their COVID-19 guidelines, allowing fully vaccinated people to forego masks outside. States with the lowest levels of mask adherence were most likely to have high COVID-19 rates in the subsequent month, independent of mask policy or demographic factors. Even Greenpeace now admits the obvious: recycling doesnt work. 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. It is also possible that survey respondents misreported their mask wearing adherence; whether they would be more or less likely to over or under-report is open to speculation, but residents in states with mask wearing policy might over-report adherence to appear compliant. New Zealand recently lifted all restrictions following 10 days with no new cases. When Can I Travel Again After Being Fully Vaccinated? 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. Wearing a mask may still give some people a sense of security, but they could breathe more easily if theyd face the facts. If youve been vaccinated and still feel mortally threatened by the virus, please read this. Eleanor J. Murray and Jennifer Weuve and the Boston University School of Public Health Epidemiology COVID-19 Response Corps for bringing together students and faculty for this project. In contrast, 25% or fewer states with a mask wearing policy had high COVID-19 rates, except in September when over half experienced high rates. Across the country, indoor mask requirements in blue states are falling like dominoes as COVID cases drop. Though many have taken fresh steps to contain the virus since then, the Times analysis compares cases and hospitalizations for a given date to a states index score from two weeks before, since researchers say it is reasonable to expect a lag between a policy's implementation and its outcome. 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. Thats what this study was pursuing to try to answer,"said Michael Bisesi, vice dean and interim chair of environmental health sciences in Ohio State University's College of Public Health. For the most recent updates on COVID-19, visit our coronavirus news page. The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It. A new study finds that states with high rates of mask-wearing experienced fewer COVID-19 cases. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. At the beginning of November, most states were scoring in the 40s and 50s. Instead, it analyzed the connection between mask mandate policies and the rate of new county-level coronavirus cases and deaths. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Many states in the Upper Midwest and Mountain West resisted more stringent control measures, like limits on gatherings and mask mandates. Writing original draft. Gavin Newsom ordered the nation's first statewide shutdown because of the coronavirus, masks remain mandated, indoor dining and other activities are significantly limited, and Disneyland remains closed. Some reopened quickly and saw cases rise. The current surge is worst in places with few containment measures. So theres a need to make decisions and be decisive, Dr. El-Sadr said. Verywell Health's content is for informational and educational purposes only. Conceptualization, here. But a new study examines how the value of these actions also came with costs. Policy data on physical distancing were dichotomized as any versus no stay-at-home order during the April 1 to October 31, 2020 interval. Thats a huge swing, Werler says. 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). Daniella Amato is a biomedical scientist and fact checker with expertise in pharmaceuticals and clinical research. Data on population distributions from the COVID-19 US State Policy Database [13] came from the US Census. 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249891.s001. 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. 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. The black line on the graph shows the weekly rate of Covid cases in all the states with mask mandates that week, while the orange line shows the rate in all the states without mandates. In Maryland , Gov. Despite an early outbreak, South Korea flattened the curve with aggressive testing and contact tracing, as well as widespread mask wearing. As of yesterday,The New York Times reports, every state that required people to wear face masks in public places and/or in schools during this winter's COVID-19 surge has decided to lift those mandates, with the exception of Hawaii. 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. Its been piecemeal, Dr. El-Sadr said. Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up. 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. When Can I Visit a Friend's House After I'm Fully Vaccinated? And the more swiftly they can act, the shorter any lockdown-style policies need to be. Yes Effectiveness of Mask Wearing to Control Community Spread of SARS-CoV-2. More detailed message would go here to provide context for the user and how to proceed. 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. 2 minute read. Note: State containment measures are shown from two weeks prior, reflecting what experts say is a lag between new policies and results. Writing review & editing, Roles 3.1.2023 9:15 AM, Joe Lancaster 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]. Effectiveness of Mask Wearing to Control Community Spread of SARS-CoV-2. 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. 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. 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. We combined the Recommended and Strict groups into Any policy. Our observed associations should influence policy-makers and contribute to public health messaging by government officials and the media that mask wearing is a key component of COVID-19 mitigation. The three COVID-19 vaccines authorized by the FDA are also helping slow COVID-19 rates, allowing for the easing of restrictions. 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). Many experts acknowledge that the rise and fall of waves is a bit of a mystery.". Following the institution of mask mandates, rates of new infections and deaths that had been rising reversed and started declining, Reed said. Of the 8 states with at least 75% mask adherence, none reported a high COVID-19 rate. 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. 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. Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. And in New York and some other states, those lockdowns came too late to prevent a big outbreak, because thats where the virus hit first, said Thomas Hale, associate professor of global public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, who leads the Oxford tracking effort. The States and Mask Mandates. Again and again, journalists and public-health officials would single out a state or a nation that had supposedly tamed Covid by forcing citizens to wear masksand then these masks would promptly fail to prevent an unprecedented wave of infections. The resurgence was blamed on people disobeying the mandates, never mind the surveys showing widespread compliance. However, the COVID-19 rates continued to be higher in places with low mask adherence. 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. Thus, subsequent comparisons of states with high COVID-19 rates by month focused on July, August, September and October. Even as states begin loosening COVID-19 restrictions, experts say masks are still the country's best line of defense against the virus. Coronavirus cases are rising in almost every U.S. state. Jocelyn Solis-Moreira is a journalist specializing in health and science news. Fully vaccinated people should continue following CDC guidelines, including wearing their masks in crowded areas and when around unvaccinated people. More state leaders acted to strike down mask mandates on Thursday, citing a decline in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. And after three tumultuous years, a new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California found that the majority Californians have a bleak economic outlook for the future. That period is used as the benchmark against which researchers compared days 21 through 60 before mask mandates were adoptedand the 100 days after. Instead of carefully analyzing the effects of masks, the CDC repeatedly tried to justify them by misrepresenting short-term trends and hyping badly flawed research, like studies in Arizona and Kansas purporting to show that infections had been dramatically reduced by the mask mandates imposed in some counties. Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Uruguay, Chile, Poland, and Hungary were all hailed as models of scientific enlightenment for their low infection rates and strict mask policiesuntil, as usual, the masks suddenly lost their magical power. Decreases in the rate of new infections and deaths from the virus were statistically significant, the studys authors found. Mast mandates may be back on the table for states where the number of COVID cases are once again causing serious alarm for health officials. We all want to be able to be with friends and family this spring and summer, and we all dont want to have [to] go back to the more stringent mitigation measures, so gathering outside and wearing masks is the best way to allow both to happen.. Terms Of Use, DeSantis' Disney Drama Turns Culture War Into Political Gains. Its Legacy Is Disastrous. We abstracted daily percentages of the population who say they always wear a mask in public. Jha thinks vaccination rates areanother important factor: While "only 59% of eligible Florida seniors have gotten boosted," he notes, the rate for California is 70 percent. That second observation requires a caveat, since testing rates affect the number of cases that are recorded. Germanys stringent policies have made it a consistent media darling. 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. Brooks JT & Butler JC. Overall, there is no obvious difference between states with mask mandates and states without them. The findings were published in the journal PLOS One in April. Researchers aggregate those indicators and assign a number from 0 to 100 to each governments total response. The claim that a CDC study found face masks to have a negligible effect on the spread of COVID-19 is FALSE. 3.1.2023 11:20 AM, Elizabeth Nolan Brown California's state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic is finally over, ending on Tuesday after nearly three years in place. Just as in the United States, the mask mandates in Germany produced no net benefits but plenty of inconvenience as well as outright harm. 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. Formal analysis, For the period of April 1 through October 31, 2020, less than half of states had issued a mandate for mask wearing in public and nearly a third had not made any recommendation. R-0 may be the most important scientific term youve never heard of when it comes to stopping the coronavirus pandemic. It is important to note that state level distributions of demographic factors do not account for concentrations or sparsity of populations within a given state. Some states now have ended their statewide masks mandates, but the president, and others, have urged them to reinstate masks mandates because of the recent upsurge that our nation has seen in COVID-19 cases. He adds that the two states "had nearly identical infection rates.". 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. After reopening early, some Sun Belt states, including Arizona and Texas, imposed restrictions again after case counts climbed. 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). Even if masking works, that does not necessarily mean mandates do. I think timing really matters for the decisions.. Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason. ", 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." Rhode Island, where I live, has had a mask mandate since mid-December; nonetheless, we saw our January surge rise far higher than any other state. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, notes that the graph for California, which required masks in indoor public settings beginning on December 15, is "strikingly similar" to the graph for Florida, which had no mask mandates. The study also found a statistically significant increase in the rate of COVID-19 infections and deaths starting 40 days after indoor or outdoor dining at restaurants was allowed. "They dont know how well people complied with these mandates or what proportion of the populationwas actually wearing masks.. 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. 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. Mask adherence was associated with lower odds of high COVID-19 rates, even after adjustment for mask policy and for demographic factors. Variants of COVID-19 Are Spreading Across the U.S. How to Plan a COVID-Safe Summer Vacation in 2022. 2.18.2022 4:30 PM. 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. Thank you for supporting our journalism. 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. The worst outbreaks in the country now are in places where policymakers did the least to prevent transmission, according to the Oxford index. But it seems clear that anyone who takes it for granted that mask mandates have played a crucial role in controlling the spread of COVID-19 is making a series of assumptions that are not justified by the evidence. Even as more and more states encourage or even mandate mask wearing, many citizens sti Our research examines mask wearing policy and adherence in association with COVID-19 case rates. For a while, the residents were spared. One state is the lone holdout. Herring dismissed those results, claiming unnamed experts told the news network that the reductions in spread the study found were not significant. Mask wearing has been advocated by public health officials as a way to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Clearly you dont want to wait too long because thats the mistake we made last time, when things spun out of control. 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