Mask mandates can limit COVID spread: Quantitative assessment of month-over-month effectiveness of governmental policies in reducing the number of new COVID-19 cases in 37 US States and the District of Columbia

Mj, Maloney; Rhodes, Nathaniel J.; Pr, Yarnold

doi:10.1101/2020.10.06.20208033

Cited by 7 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The dates of the Mask Mandates' implementation were obtained from the COVID-19 US State Policy (CUSP) Database 57 . Mask Mandates for All Public Facing Employees were used, as in previous reports 4,15 .…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies have demonstrated the efficacy of Governmental Mask Mandates promoting the wearing of face masks in public 3 , in reducing infections 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14 , and reducing mortality 15,16 , associated with COVID-19.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These reports bring into questions the validity of that data. Because of this concern, in the current study, as in earlier studies 4,15 , independently curated publicly available data was used 39 . Male no doc cost 53 Men with Cardiovascular Disease 42 Ethnicity: Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander 51 Female no doc cost 53 Women with Cardiovascular Disease 42…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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MASK MANDATES REDUCE COVID-19 MORTALITY: Analysis of 37 States and the District of Columbia, with a further analysis of the impact of demographic and medical factors on efficacy

Mj¹

2021

Preprint

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As the number of COVID-19 deaths in the US increased, various policies were enacted to slow the spread of the pandemic. While the situation has improved in recent months, determining how best to combat the current pandemic is still essential. Failure to do so invites both further resurgences of the current pandemic, and more pandemics in the years to come. As a result of the widespread failure to contain the spread of COVID-19, enough deaths have occurred that the impact of policy on mortality may be statistically evaluated. This paper uses Optimal Discriminant Analysis (ODA) to evaluate the hypothesized ability of limited mask mandates (MM) to reduce the daily number of COVID-19 deaths in the states analyzed. The mandates were found to reduce mortality in half the states analyzed and did not result in increased mortality in any states. A full range of cofactors were analyzed to determine which, if any, influenced the efficacy of the mandates in the states in which mandates had an effect. Institutional Health Subindex of the Social Capital Index, state health score, population density, portion of the population with nongroup health insurance, state GDP, and the rate of pregnancy related diabetes were all correlated with increased mandate efficacy. In contrast, incarceration rate, overcrowded housing, severely overcrowded housing, portion of the population with military provided insurance, portion of the population uninsured, the portion of the population unable to see a doctor due to cost, and the portion of the population who were American Indian/Native Alaskan were all correlated with reduced mandate efficacy.

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Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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MASK MANDATES REDUCE COVID-19 MORTALITY: Analysis of 37 States and the District of Columbia, with a further analysis of the impact of demographic and medical factors on efficacy

Mj¹

2021

Preprint

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“…Also studying US states, Maloney et al . (2020) [24] find no statistically significant change in cases following mandate implementations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mass mask-wearing notably reduces COVID-19 transmission

Leech

Rogers-Smith²,

Sandbrink

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Mask-wearing has been a controversial measure to control the COVID-19 pandemic. While masks are known to substantially reduce disease transmission in healthcare settings (Howard et al 2021), studies in community settings report inconsistent results (Brainard et al 2020). Investigating the inconsistency within epidemiological studies, we find that a commonly used proxy, government mask mandates, does not correlate with large increases in mask-wearing in our window of analysis. We thus analyse the effect of mask-wearing on transmission instead, drawing on several datasets covering 92 regions on 6 continents, including the largest survey of individual-level wearing behaviour (n=20 million) (Kreuter et al 2020). Using a hierarchical Bayesian model, we estimate the effect of both mask-wearing and mask-mandates on transmission by linking wearing levels (or mandates) to reported cases in each region, adjusting for mobility and non-pharmaceutical interventions. We assess the robustness of our results in 123 experiments across 22 sensitivity analyses. Across these analyses, we find that an entire population wearing masks in public leads to a median reduction in the reproduction number R of 25.8%, with 95% of the medians between 22.2% and 30.9%. In our window of analysis, the median reduction in $R$ associated with the wearing level observed in each region was 20.4% [2.0%, 23.3%]. We do not find evidence that mandating mask-wearing reduces transmission. Our results suggest that mask-wearing is strongly affected by factors other than mandates. We establish the effectiveness of mass mask-wearing, and highlight that wearing data, not mandate data, are necessary to infer this effect.

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Analysis of the effectiveness of face-coverings on the death ratio of COVID-19 using machine learning

Lafzi

Boodaghi²,

Zamani³

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 led to death of millions of people worldwide. To stave off the spread of the virus, the authorities in the US employed different strategies, including the mask mandate order issued by the states’ governors. In the current work, we defined a parameter called average death ratio as the monthly average of the number of daily deaths to the monthly average number of daily cases. We utilized survey data to quantify people’s abidance by the mask mandate order. Additionally, we implicitly addressed the extent to which people abide by the mask mandate order, which may depend on some parameters such as population, income, and education level. Using different machine learning classification algorithms, we investigated how the decrease or increase in death ratio for the counties in the US West Coast correlates with the input parameters. The results showed that for the majority of counties, the mask mandate order decreased the death ratio, reflecting the effectiveness of such a preventive measure on the West Coast. Additionally, the changes in the death ratio demonstrated a noticeable correlation with the socio-economic condition of each county. Moreover, the results showed a promising classification accuracy score as high as 90%.

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Mask mandates can limit COVID spread: Quantitative assessment of month-over-month effectiveness of governmental policies in reducing the number of new COVID-19 cases in 37 US States and the District of Columbia

Cited by 7 publications

References 22 publications

MASK MANDATES REDUCE COVID-19 MORTALITY: Analysis of 37 States and the District of Columbia, with a further analysis of the impact of demographic and medical factors on efficacy

MASK MANDATES REDUCE COVID-19 MORTALITY: Analysis of 37 States and the District of Columbia, with a further analysis of the impact of demographic and medical factors on efficacy

Mass mask-wearing notably reduces COVID-19 transmission

Analysis of the effectiveness of face-coverings on the death ratio of COVID-19 using machine learning

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