Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Masks and COVID-19: In the US, a patchwork of policies persist

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Ivan Couronne


As the United States’ COVID-19 infection rate hits an all-time high, calls are growing for a nationwide mask mandate to replace the current patchwork of state regulations.


One person who’s yet to be convinced, however, is President Donald Trump, who has consistently stressed treatments and future vaccines as the means to end the pandemic.


Trump also mocks his rival in next week’s presidential election, Joe Biden, for favouring nationwide masking, and accuses the Democrat of wanting to return Americans to lockdown.


To date, 33 of the 50 US states, as well as the capital Washington and island of Puerto Rico, have imposed mandates.


In the other 17, it’s been left to local jurisdictions, like cities, towns and counties to decide for themselves.


This in turn has created what researchers refer to as “natural experiments,” whereby places that have similar make-ups but differ on their mask policies can be compared.


Take Kansas, where the governor imposed a mask order in July but individual counties could opt-out.


The result was that only 20 of 105 counties actually made masks mandatory — and in those areas, the infection rate fell by 50 per cent compared to counties where there weren’t such orders, according to researchers at the University of Kansas.


The problem with this method, which was also used in Texas and Oklahoma, is that it does not take into account the other behaviour measures that often accompany mask orders.


A study published in the journal Health Affairs used statistical methods to control for these variables, and found that mask orders in the springtime alone prevented between 230,000-400,000 cases by May 22.


An epidemiological model from the University of Washington published recently in Nature even estimates that 130,000 deaths could be avoided by the end of February if 95 per cent of the population wear a mask in the presence of other people.


Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday titled “Winter Is Coming: Time for a Mask Mandate.” — AFP


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