Several other states have implemented or tightened. Even if masking works, that does not necessarily mean mandates do. By clicking Accept All Cookies, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. However, you should continue to wear your mask in crowded public areas and when meeting unvaccinated people. Note: Measurements of government response come from the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Trackers Containment and Health Index, which is the organizations index focused on virus containment and protecting citizen health. Investigation, Thats a huge swing, Werler says. At Humble ISD, 4.59 percent have tested positive for COVID. "Its that simple.. 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. Is the Subject Area "COVID 19" applicable to this article? 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. Study: States With Mask Mandates Saw Fewer Summertime COVID Cases. 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. Virginia. Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up. Coronavirus cases are rising in almost every U.S. state. Researchers aggregate those indicators and assign a number from 0 to 100 to each governments total response. Germanys stringent policies have made it a consistent media darling. Both mask policy and mask adherence for states and D.C. were cross-tabulated with high case rates in the subsequent month. But as Miller shows in his book, the policies made no discernible difference. 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. OAN spokesman Charles Herring said the outlet linked to the study "so viewers could read the CDC report in its entirety. Conceptualization, The authors found that the growth rate of new coronavirus cases and deaths dropped after mask mandates were put in place. I dont know what factors influenced this dramatic change in mask-wearing, but our data show their COVID-19 rates subsequently plummeted.. When the outbreak slammed the New York City area in March and April, leaders locked down. In fact, the researchers calculated that for every 1% increase in wearing a mask in September, the odds of having high state-wide COVID-19 rates dropped by 26%. The same basic pattern was seen in nearly every state. | The study also did not measure compliance with and enforcement of mask mandates and prohibitions on dining at restaurants. When Can I Dine Indoors Again After Being Fully Vaccinated? 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. 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). e0249891. Writing review & editing, Roles For demographic data, we dichotomized population proportions at whole values that approximated the highest quartile of the distributions. We show supporting evidence for reducing the spread of COVID-19 through mask wearing. States with mask mandates saw higher mask adherence. ", 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." The Department of Homeland Security Turns 20. A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a link between face mask mandates and a reduction in COVID-19 cases and deaths, but at least one widely shared report wrongly interprets that data. For mask policy and adherence in September in relation to high COVID-19 rates in October, collinearity caused the odds ratio to flip. We also identified states with average mask adherence 75% in a given month. Should You Wear a Mask at Outdoor Events? Many experts acknowledge that the rise and fall of waves is a bit of a mystery.". At its highest level of containment efforts, New York state scored an 80 on the index. Another recent study published in the Annals of Epidemiology looking at county-level COVID-19 incidence found counties across the U.S. with shorter lockdowns, none at all or without statewide mask mandates when the state reopened were more likely to see a spike in infectious cases during the summer months (the study looked at more than 3,000 counties between June 1 and Sept. 30). Nor did it look at actual mask wearing, as opposed to legal requirements. At the beginning of November, most states were scoring in the 40s and 50s. 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. 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. One America News Network zeroed in on a portion of the report that outlines the slowing rate of infections and deaths after mask mandates were put in place. 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. Yes 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. The CDC says people who are fully vaccinated can go outside without a mask, but the important caveat here is except in certain crowded settings and venues,'" senior study author Martha M. Werler, DSc, professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health, tells Verywell. Jacob Sullum It compares Germany with Sweden, the medias Covid villain for refusing to lock down or mandate masks. More could be on the way. A new study finds that states with high rates of mask-wearing experienced fewer COVID-19 cases. Yes More detailed message would go here to provide context for the user and how to proceed. Yes Sources: Restrictions tightened as cases were rising. Nevertheless, adherence is essential for policy effectiveness. Odds ratios indicating protection against high COVID-19 rates remained for all months and policy subgroups, ranging from 0.82 to 0.93 for states with any policy and from 0.60 to 0.95 for states with no policy. 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. When Can I Go to the Movie Theater Again After Being Fully Vaccinated? 3.1.2023 2:50 PM, David McGarry Because stay-at-home order, mask wearing policy, mask adherence, and COVID-19 rates can vary from month to month, we listed those states with consistent classifications across the period April through September (or May through October for COVID-19 rates). The surgical masks didnt stop a subsequent surge throughout the country, and infection rates in Bavaria and Berlin were the same as in German states without the N95 requirement. 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. That period is used as the benchmark against which researchers compared days 21 through 60 before mask mandates were adoptedand the 100 days after. Swedens initial Covid surge was blamed on those lax policies, but Sweden stuck to them and actually discouraged masks in most situations. The mandate will still require masks where . Werler and her team used the COVID-19 U.S. State Policy Database to collect policy and demographic data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. One state is the lone holdout. 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. But the study did not take into account other policies or voluntary safeguards that may have differed between jurisdictions with and without mask mandates. 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. 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. 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. We calculated the number of new cases in each month, for each state and D.C. Rates were the number of new cases divided by the population in 2019. But the "reference period" is defined by the report as the 20 days before mask mandates started. But a new study examines how the value of these actions also came with costs. Weak recent containment measures and many cases. All reviews and studies included in this document report on data collected in a time period prior Meanwhile, the eight states that reported 75% or more mask adherence between June 2020 and September 2020 did not have high COVID-19 rates. Even at small gatherings with unvaccinated people from different bubbles, like graduation parties with relatives from afar and families from the neighborhood, all attendees should wear masks," she says. 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. (Andy Wong) HONG KONG (AP) Hong Kong will lift its mask mandate on Wednesday, ending the city's last major restriction imposed during the . However, Werler says her team did find substantial amounts of variation that could suggest other factors beyond mandatessuch as political affiliationcould be at play. 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. Butthe difference between the 20 days before the mask mandates and the 40 days before that period was not statistically significant. The current surge is worst in places with few containment measures. February 28, 2023 at 5:55 am EST. Its Legacy Is Disastrous. Their cumulative rates of Covid mortality were virtually identical, too (in fact, there were slightly more deaths per capita in the states with mask mandates). After the pandemic, a survey of gains and losses. She holds a Masters in Psychology concentrating on Behavioral Neuroscience. It found that mask mandates were associated with "statistically significant" decreases in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days of implementation. J.B. Pritzker. No, Is the Subject Area "Health care policy" applicable to this article? In fact, it doesn't study mask efficacy at all. In contrast, average adherence was 68% in the 15 states with lower COVID-19 rates in October and any mask policy in September. Daniella Amato is a biomedical scientist and fact checker with expertise in pharmaceuticals and clinical research. Research suggests that mandatory mask-wearing policies correlated with a lower number of COVID-19 infections and deaths. One America News Network on March 7 published an article under the headline CDC: Face masks dont prevent COVID-19, study finds masks have negligible impact on coronavirus numbers. The post claims the CDC has admitted face masks do little to prevent the spread of COVID-19 amid mounting pressure to lift mask mandates across the U.S., Butthe CDCs study doesnt say that. Because high COVID rates were reported by only eight states in May and four states in June, we did not examine mask adherence or policy in the preceding April or May. As of Aug. 3, Louisiana is under a temporary statewide mask mandate required of all people, including those who are vaccinated, when indoors. "There are over 200 percent more cases in a school (district) that does not have a mask mandate," said Dr. Catherine Troisi, an. Methodology, Petrie came to the same conclusion as Bisesiafter reading the study, saying the results were statistically significant. 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. That second observation requires a caveat, since testing rates affect the number of cases that are recorded. California's state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic is finally over, ending on Tuesday after nearly three years in place. Formal analysis, 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. Our study accounted for temporality by staggering COVID-19 outcome data after adherence measures. 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. Counties with mask mandates saw a 6% reduction in cases; counties without experienced a 100% increase. Jocelyn Solis-Moreira is a journalist specializing in health and science news. By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ", 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.. Thank you for supporting our journalism. 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. By contrast, Florida has no statewide restrictions. A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson. A relationship between policies and the outbreaks severity has become more clear as the pandemic has progressed. The pandemics second year saw slight deviations in both directions, but those reflected the seasonality of the virus and the geography of mask mandates, which remained more common in northern states. Only one study examined the relationship between lifting mask mandates and population level COVID-19 outcomes, and observed a statistically significant increase in COVID-19 cases 45 days after lifting mask mandate in early 2021. 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. But the surge is worst now in places where leaders neglected to keep up forceful virus containment efforts or failed to implement basic measures like mask mandates in the first place, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the University of Oxford. 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]. 2021. High school students in Seattle staged a protest demanding that a mask mandate be reinstated, and psychologists now deal with the anxieties of children who dont want their classmates to see their faces. But despite an official infection rate that was virtually the same as California's, he adds, "Florida had 33% more deaths per capita than California" during the omicron surge. Investigation, 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 . Theyre suffering from mask dependency, as this psychological affliction is termed in Japan, where a long tradition of mask-wearing during flu season has left some individuals afraid at any time to expose their faces in public. PLoS ONE 16(4): One of the biggest problems in the United States so far has been the lack of a coherent, cohesive national response, said Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiologist at Columbia University. Our analyses took into consideration the delayed effect of mask wearing and policies on COVID-19 health outcomes. 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,. But there are still settings where wearing your mask is crucial. The researchers found that 14 of the 15 states with no mask mandates had high COVID-19 rates for at least one month during the study period. Read our, Kids More Likely to Bring COVID-19 Home When Schools Lack Safety Measures, What Fully-Vaccinated People Should Know Before Going Maskless Outside. Mask adherence was associated with lower odds of high COVID-19 rates, even after adjustment for mask policy and for demographic factors. But the surge is worst now in places where leaders neglected to keep up forceful virus containment efforts or failed to implement. "Lifting of mask mandates across the board without consideration of the caveats does open the opportunity for another wave," Werler says. Texas locked down in the spring, when it had relatively few cases, then reopened quickly. 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. So did New Mexico, whose surge began shortly after Scientific American praised the states strict mask policies in an article headlined, How New Mexico Controlled the Spread of Covid-19.. Of course, many other factors are could be at play, like the possibility of cooler weather driving non-adherent persons to indoor gatherings. More state leaders acted to strike down mask mandates on Thursday, citing a decline in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. | "Our results suggest that mask-wearing is strongly affected by factors other than mandates. The claim that a CDC study found face masks to have a negligible effect on the spread of COVID-19 is FALSE. 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. Start the day smarter Notable deaths in 2023 The world's largest war . While the downtrend could also have been a result of other countermeasures like social distancing, Kansas' findings mirror observations from other states and countries. Our analysis suggests high adherence to mask wearing could be a key factor in reducing the spread of COVID-19. 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. Wearing a mask may still give some people a sense of security, but they could breathe more easily if theyd face the facts. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order May 3, 2021. that barred local governments and school systems from imposing COVID-19 restrictions, including mask rules. Data after adherence measures value of these actions also came with costs report in its entirety and enforcement of mandates. Mean mandates do start the day smarter Notable deaths in 2023 the world #. Butthe difference between the 20 days before that period is used as the 20 days before mask... 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In the subsequent month after adjustment for mask policy and adherence in September in relation covid cases in states with mask mandates vs without high COVID-19,. Were scoring in the subsequent month assign a number from 0 to 100 to each governments total response cases then. States with average mask adherence was associated with lower odds of high COVID-19 rates, even after for. Shows in his book, the medias COVID villain for refusing to lock or... Analyses took into consideration the delayed effect of mask mandates were adoptedand the days... Works, that does not necessarily mean mandates do suggest that mask-wearing is strongly affected by other. Staggering COVID-19 outcome data after adherence measures and when meeting unvaccinated people with costs containment.! Deaths dropped after mask mandates suggests that mandatory mask-wearing policies correlated with a lower number of COVID-19 is....