The effect of compulsory face mask policies on community mobility in Germany^*

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate about making face masks compulsory in public spaces to contain COVID‐19. A key concern is that such policies could undermine efforts to maintain social distancing and reduce mobility. We provide first evidence on the impact of compulsory face mask policies on community mobility. We exploit the staggered implementation of policies by German states during the first wave of the pandemic and measure mobility using geo‐located smartphone data. We find that compulsory masking policies led to a short‐term reduction in community mobility, with no significant medium‐term effects. We can rule out even small increases in mobility.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

The unseen toll: excess mortality during covid-19 lockdowns

“…Figure 3 presents the Google mobility trends for both, places of work (e) and residential areas (f) for Sweden (solid line) and for our previously constructed counterfactual synthetic Sweden (dotted line). Previous studies suggest a correlation between Covid-19 restrictions and mobility 22 . In comparison to the baseline (first 5 weeks of 2020), it becomes clear that during the first wave of the pandemic (March–June) Swedes spent substantially less time at their workplace (e) and instead spent more time in their residences (f).…”