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. "Lifting of mask mandates across the board without consideration of the caveats does open the opportunity for another wave," Werler says. We observed some benefit of mask policy on COVID-19 rates, but the findings were unstable. Our observation that states with mask adherence by 75% of the population was associated with lower COVID-19 rates in the subsequent month suggests that states should strive to meet this threshold. As of Aug. 3, Louisiana is under a temporary statewide mask mandate required of all people, including those who are vaccinated, when indoors. For mask policy and adherence in September in relation to high COVID-19 rates in October, collinearity caused the odds ratio to flip. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249891.g001. A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson. 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. Heres How Doctors With Kids Are Navigating the New Mask Guidance. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) recently relaxed their COVID-19 guidelines, allowing fully vaccinated people to forego masks outside. | 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. Immediately after these mandates were instituted, these declines were statistically significant.. + Caption. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249891.t001. 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. 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. Some reopened quickly and saw cases rise. Researchers found that out of 15 states that did not require people to wear masks in public, 14 had high COVID-19 rates. The same basic pattern was seen in nearly every state. 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. 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. But a new study examines how the value of these actions also came with costs. 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. By Lauren Leatherby and Rich HarrisNov. "The states with mask mandates haven't fared significantly better than the 35 states that didn't impose them during the omicron wave. Germanys stringent policies have made it a consistent media darling. If youre still not convinced to take off the mask, consider one more graph from Miller. here. Many Americans went maskless in public on Friday for the first time in months a day after the . PLOS ONE promises fair, rigorous peer review, You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Once you start thinking about acting, it probably is the time to act.. 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. Former Arizona AG Found No Evidence of 2020 Election Fraud. The adoption of universal masking policies is increasingly polarized and politicized, demanding that public health authorities balance the values of health and individual liberty. 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. 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. To reduce the rate of COVID-19 cases nationwide, Werler says people need to wear their masks. Since the spring, Maine mandated masks and had strict travel restrictions for out-of-state visitors; South Dakota, meanwhile, has never had a mask mandate and welcomed nearly half a million people to the Sturgis motorcycle rally, as well as its state fair, which attracted more than 100,000 visitors. 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. Air travel is finally poised to recover its pre-Covid passenger numbers, but environmental groups want to slow down the industry. 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. The CDC's report is the latestin a growing body of evidence establishing mask mandates as an effective strategy in curbing the virus. When Can I Go to the Movie Theater Again After Being Fully Vaccinated? Conceptualization, 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. Thus, policy and adherence levels in a given month were contrasted with lagged COVID-19 case rates in the subsequent month. They looked at data from April to October 2020. States in COVID-19 high-risk categories are listed in Table 1. COVID-19 death rates dropped by 0.7 percentage points in the first 20 days after masks were required. | Randomized clinical trials involving flu viruses had shown, contrary to popular wisdom in Japan and other Asian countries, that there was no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission, as the WHO summarized the scientific literature. Mask wearing has been advocated by public health officials as a way to reduce the spread of COVID-19 [35]. Our website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. 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.. Coronavirus cases are rising in almost every U.S. state. Research suggests that mandatory mask-wearing policies correlated with a lower number of COVID-19 infections and deaths. Based on data from various countries and U.S. states from May to September 2020, a preprint study published last June found that general mask wearing was associated with a reduction in virus transmission. Since July 27, 2020, individuals had been required to wear a mask or face covering in the state when visiting public indoor spaces and when unable to maintain a 6-foot distance from. 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. When Youve Been Fully Vaccinated. The current surge is worst in places with few containment measures. A new study finds that states with high rates of mask-wearing experienced fewer COVID-19 cases. 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). The claim that a CDC study found face masks to have a negligible effect on the spread of COVID-19 is FALSE. 2021. Containment measures are as of Nov. 1. "Their perspective on the study and results to me are contrary to what was stated in the actual study itself," Bisesi said. 2021;325(10):998-999. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.1505. Fourteen of the 15 states with no mask wearing policy for the general public for the entire four month period (June through September) reported a high COVID-19 rate. Privacy Policy | Even Greenpeace now admits the obvious: recycling doesnt work. In addition, Hawaii and Oregon, which have both implemented school mask. 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. 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. Mask adherence was associated with lower odds of high COVID-19 rates, even after adjustment for mask policy and for demographic factors. Maskaholics in the press are calling for permanent masking on trains, planes, and buses. By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira Petrie came to the same conclusion as Bisesiafter reading the study, saying the results were statistically significant. 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). 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. The current study . 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 States and Mask Mandates. States that have kept more control policies in a more consistent way New England states, for example have avoided a summer surge and are now having a smaller fall surge, as opposed to states that rolled them back very quickly like Florida or Texas, Mr. Hale said. The claim: CDC study found that face masks have a negligible effect on the spread of COVID-19. Traveling This Summer? 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.. Methodology, 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. | Sources: Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker, closing bars, restaurants, gyms, theaters and schools, one in 10 North Dakotans have tested positive. When Can I Dine Indoors Again After Being Fully Vaccinated? Clearly you dont want to wait too long because thats the mistake we made last time, when things spun out of control. Vaccinated persons can carry and spread the virus.". J.B. Pritzker. 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. 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