In a recent article in Medical Care, Petersen et al examined the impact of Iowa lifting their state mask mandate in February 2021.
The cumulative case rate in Iowa increased by 20%–30% within 3 weeks of lifting the mask mandate as compared with a synthetic control unit. This association appeared to be related to people, in fact, reducing their mask-wearing habits.
There are three effective classes of people when we think about masking or most other social policies.
- Always Compliers/Always masking — these folks are mandate insensitive.
- Will do it if they have to — these folks are fairly indifferent to a mandate but there is a “taste for compliance”
- Always Defiers/Never masking — these folks are mandate insensitive
There will always be some people who are mandate insensitive no matter what. Their behavior won’t change. Analytically these folks are irrelevant in evaluating whether or not a policy has effect. However the middle group is critical and this is the group where policy leverage exists. If we think that there are a lot of people in this group then there is likely a lot of policy leverage. If we think that this group is pretty small, at least relative to the size of the policy shock that can be delivered, there is not a lot of leverage.
This study finds that there is a lot of leverage. A lot of people will wear masks when there is social and legal sanction behind mask wearing. A lot of people will not wear a mask when the legal sanction disappears and plausibly weakens the social norms and sanctioning of mask wearing.
This leverage led to a lot more people getting infected.
Roger Moore
That’s a useful model, though reality is more of a sliding scale. For example, there are people who will wear masks in some situations where they aren’t mandated but won’t wear them everywhere. I fall into this category. I still wear my mask when shopping, even though my county no longer mandates this, but I have largely given up wearing one at work now that my employer no longer mandates it, largely because I have confidence everyone I will run into at work is vaccinated and boostered.
Similarly, there are some people who will wear masks where mandated, but only when there’s some enforcement mechanism. If the bus driver requires everyone to put on their mask when entering the bus, they’ll comply, but since there’s nobody doing enforcement on the train, they won’t there. I find it immensely frustrating that the LASD deputies who are primarily responsible for law enforcement on the trains are some of the worst scofflaws when it comes to mask wearing. One more reason to vote against our sheriff in November.
arrieve
I know that living in Manhattan (where most people still mask indoors) gives me an atypical view of how Americans are behaving, but spending a long weekend in Minneapolis and environs was still shocking. I was often the only person wearing a mask.
I changed planes at O’Hare on the way out, and it was a solid mass of people, maybe–maybe!–ten percent of them masked. It was as though Covid had never happened.
I took an at-home test yesterday, and will take another in a couple of days. I’m not sure that even a really good mask is enough to protect you from all the idiots.
Cmorenc
At the height of the pandemic & mask mandates, I was in grand junction, colorado and running an errand at the local home depot, which had “mask required” signs prominently displayed at the entrances, and apx 4 out of 5 people were compliant – but i watched many of the 1-in-5 ers walk in unmasked with unmistakably defiant body language unmistakably communicating “i dare anyone (store employees included) to stop me.” No one did.
I should mention that grand junction is in lauren bobert’s congressional district, and my physician daughter who practices there informed me that grand junction is also a hotbed of anti-vaxxers, roughly comparable to the proportion of defiantly anti-maskers.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@arrieve:
Many of those people are “vaxxed and done”. They want the pandemic to be done believe COVID is over. My parents are among that group, in their early 60s, who go everywhere unmasked now.
“But the numbers are so low!”
Baud
Europe is even worse when it comes to masking, from what I’ve seen.
Villago Delenda Est
Group 3 is made up of selfish fuckhaids who deserve to suffer for their selfishness.
Ramalama
@Baud: My sister-in-law and extended family lives in France. She said that basically Covid’s over. Which is a crock. But we’ve been thinking about making a trip over to YURP for one last shot at seeing some elderly relatives. Likely will stay put, though. We have barely left our village. Still don’t go out to eat. One of our local grocery stores had a cashier who gave me the hairy eyeball at my mask. I didn’t know enough French to argue, and besides, I’m not gonna. She held her stare on me as I emptied my cart onto the conveyer belt. She stopped glaring when she started coughing. Could not stop coughing throughout my purchase. That’ll teach her to f*ck with me.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Germany was really good about masking, when it was mandated.
Tony G
@Cmorenc: One of my nieces (28 years old) lives in Grand Junction. She loves the scenery there; the dimwitted MAGAs not so much. Needless to say, she caught covid a few months ago (probably from one of her unvaccinated, unmasked patients — she’s a family therapist). She recovered apparently OK, but this illustrates what happens when common-sense precautions are not enforced. If there were no traffic lights, some people would be careful at intersections, but many people would just barrel on through.
Elizabelle
The saving grace was that the mutated form of virus was both more contagious and less virulent. Had it gone the other way, we might have had a different outcome to this social experiment.
Plus, better treatment protocols.
Tony G
@Tony G: It’s interesting (and appalling) that most of the anti-vaxxers seem to also be anti-maskers. That makes sense only if they believe that the covid pandemic is all a Deep State hoax which, I guess, is what many of them believe.
Tony G
@Elizabelle: Of course, the virus will continue to mutate. Next time we might not be so “lucky”.
frosty
I’m still masking at the grocery store and some other places. I’ve read enough about Long COVID that I’m still trying to avoid getting sick.
rk
I’ve been wearing a mask throughout, at work (healthcare) and outside, been ultra careful. My co- workers are superb wrt masking. But now I feel it’s only a matter of time till I get it. Why? Because of all the morons out there. They’re all “done” with Covid. But Covid’s not done with them. One of my co-workers got Covid. She always wears an N95 mask. I’ve never seen her without one. But her husband decided that he was not going to mask after getting the booster. Picked it up at his work, passed it on to his wife, kid and mother-in-law and presumably anyone else he breathed on. She was sick with horrible cough, headaches, all the symtoms, but back to work after 10 days (becasue that’s how healthcare works). Wasn’t even required to test negative. Came back to work looking like death and was told to keep wearing a KN95 and eat in isolation. She got it becasue of her selfish asshole of a husband. This pandemic is not over by a longshot. I’ll consider it over when the hospital tells us to take off our masks. And I don’t see that happening any time soon.
I hate this collective.
L
It takes an unlocked door to stop a good guy with a gun.
Bill Arnold
Another large US Department of Veterans Affairs retrospective study, on risks of additional long covid from reinfection. This is a preprint though related to the other few large long-COVID VA studies.
Outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection (Ziyad Al-Aly, Benjamin Bowe, Yan Xie, 17 Jun, 2022, preprint)
The TL;DR crowd might want to look at the figures, in particular Figure 5
Elizabelle
@Tony G: Yup. Nation and world of gamblers there.
rikyrah
Mask up, folks.
trollhattan
Our county unhelpfully reduced their frequency of updating the covid dashboard stats. Per the latest available the case rate is 36/100k, well up from 5 or so in April. Test positivity is an eye-popping 36%. Concerning to me is while unvaccinated case rate is 45/100k, fully vaccinated isn’t far behind at 34.
Everybody is bored by covid. Covid is still very interested in us.
rikyrah
@frosty:
Long COVID terrifies me
bookworm1398
My personal experience agrees that most people fall in group 2. It is not fear of punishment though, these are people who have NOT done their own research and instead trust that the government guidance is the way to go.
PaulB
Since this began and I started taking sensible precautions, I’ve not had a cold, the flu, or Covid. I intend to continue taking sensible precautions for the foreseeable future.
The Moar You Know
@Tony G: Oppositional defiant disorder is a real thing. At a guess I’m going to say that at least 20% of the adult populace has it.
trollhattan
@PaulB: Same. Not one cold since 2020.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Cmorenc: As an associate(fancy name for wage slave) at the Home of the Orange Apron, we are not permitted to comment on customers’ behavior.
Central Planning
I was in Vegas for a week and wore a mask for most of the time except while eating. A requirement for the conference was that everyone had to be vaccinated. I’ve been back almost a week and have tested negative every other day. I even had a PCR test to be safe.
I’ve heard a ton of other people did get COVID out there, probably because they were at bars or just plain stupid and not wearing a mask. SMH.
Stacy
I was in the Southwest terminal at San Diego airport the other day. It was extremely crowded and I was really surprised that only about 25% of people were wearing masks. Even on the plane to San Jose, masking was maybe 50%.