Spencer
Brown | @itsspencerbrown | Posted:
May 26, 2021 11:30 AM
New findings
reported Tuesday in a University of Louisville study challenge what has been
the prevailing belief that mask mandates are necessary to slow the spread of
the Wuhan coronavirus. The study notes that
"80% of US states mandated masks during the COVID-19 pandemic" and
while "mandates induced greater mask compliance, [they] did not predict
lower growth rates when community spread was low (minima) or high
(maxima)." Among other things, the study—conducted using data from the CDC
covering multiple seasons—reports that "mask mandates and use are not
associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states."
"Our
findings do not support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates
decrease with greater public mask use," notes the U of L report.
Researchers stated that "masks may promote social cohesion as rallying
symbols during a pandemic, but risk compensation can also occur" before
listing some observed risks that accompany mask wearing:
Prolonged mask use (>4 hours per day)
promotes facial alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which
in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk. British
clinicians have reported masks to increase headaches and sweating and decrease
cognitive precision. Survey bias notwithstanding, these sequelae are associated
with medical errors. By obscuring nonverbal communication, masks interfere with
social learning in children. Likewise, masks can distort verbal speech and
remove visual cues to the detriment of individuals with hearing loss; clear
face-shields improve visual integration, but there is a corresponding loss of
sound quality.
The study
also noted that the mandates put in place by many states in line with CDC
guidance at the time were "poor predictors of COVID-19 spread,"
according to the research:
In summary, mask mandates and use were
poor predictors of COVID-19 spread in US states. Case growth was independent of
mandates at low and high rates of community spread, and mask use did not
predict case growth during the Summer or Fall-Winter waves. Strengths of our
study include using two mask metrics to evaluate association with COVID-19
growth rates; measuring normalized case growth in mandate and non-mandate
states at comparable times to quantify the likely effect of mandates; and
deconvolving the effect of mask use by examining case growth in states with
variable mask use.
Current guidance from the
CDC—last updated April 19, 2021—states that masks "are a simple barrier to
help prevent your respiratory droplets from reaching others" and
"studies show that masks reduce the spray of droplets when worn over the
nose and mouth."Recently, the CDC updated its guidance to allow for fully
vaccinated individuals to ditch their masks, a revision that has led to several
states and companies updating
their mask mandates to allow the same.
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