As you may know, 60 Minutes aired a segment on Sunday that basically accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of corruption for giving Publix supermarkets a contract to vaccinate Floridians. The evidence for this was all but nonexistent, and conservatives are outraged about the affair.
I don't really blame them. One of the problems is that DeSantis is a high-profile Trumpie with obvious ambitions, and Florida has certainly engaged in some questionable behavior. That makes him a target. Nevertheless, I'm hard pressed to find any good evidence that Florida is a serious outlier in COVID-19 mortality even though DeSantis has kept the state more open than most.
Anyway, this got me a little curious about the impact of mask mandates. DeSantis has never issued a statewide mandate and has recently tried to ban local governments from doing so. How much difference has this made?
First I did some puttering around about the effect of mask wearing in general. It's a very difficult thing to measure because higher COVID rates probably cause more mask wearing, which means a crude study will find that mask wearing correlates with higher COVID rates. It's also the case that people who refuse to wear masks are the kind of people who probably engage in other risky behavior too. Everyone is well aware of this, which means researchers have turned to complicated estimates based on natural experiments, instrumental variables, and tons of controls. The upshot is that there's some evidence that increased mask wearing produces reduced COVID infection rates, but above a certain level the effect appears to be both modest and questionable.
That's not the end of the story, though. Even if increasing mask wearing from, say 50% to 55% has an effect, there's another question to answer: do mask mandates cause more people to wear masks in the first place? There's research from last year that suggests they do, but check out this weird-looking scatterplot from a more recent study:
An eyeball check suggests that mask wearing increases only slightly when a state issues a mask mandate. I used a super-special, completely sketchy method to check this out. Here are the results:
I copied two vertical segments of the chart, one from just before the mandate (left) and one from two weeks later (right). Then I blurred both of them out to form uniform fields and converted them to black and white. The right hand image is lighter, which suggests that mask wearing went up, but only a tiny amount.
The study itself agrees that, on a statistical basis, there's no measurable effect. This means there's basically no evidence that statewide mask mandates produce any behavioral change at all.
This is hardly the end of the story, but it does lean in the direction of suggesting that mask mandates don't work because nobody pays attention to them. Perhaps they did earlier in the pandemic, when they were newer and scarier, but not anymore as people have become more jaded. In any case, if this recent study is correct, the level of mask wearing seems like it's now more related to outside factors (the local level of COVID infections, mask mandates from businesses, etc.) than to a proclamation from the governor.
UPDATE: Sorry, I misread the legend. In the original post I suggested that mask wearing had gone down slightly following a mandate, but it's actually up slightly. However, the effect is so small it's basically not measurable.
How do local mask mandates factor into this? South Dakota spent much of the pandemic with mandates in its cities, but no state-wide mandate.
Do people comply better when it is a mayor, rather than a governor?
People have "common sense" for the most part
State wide SD has a population density of 11.1/sqmi (New Jersey is at 1210.1 per sq mile for comparison)
Tea SD is a very small city or town total population of 5397 but they are squeezed into a land area of 1.7 sq/mi giving a population density of 3192/sq/mi
People know that crowds are dangerous and indoor crowds are more dangerous for disease spread than outdoor crowds are. They know from our basic cold and flu seasons of the past.
The only thing that has changed here in the U,S, is that people finally woke up to the fact that those people in Asian countries that have been wearing masks for quite some time are less likely to catch colds, flus and yes COVID too. They didn't have to be told this - they realized it on their own. We finally said to ourselves "hey those folks - who I used to think were third world folks - may be on to something here."
But that guy working a ranch in Wyoming with 6 people per sq/mi have very little to worry about - unless he heads into town
And are you sure that the Florida numbers are accurate?
DeSantis canned his health statistics person apparently because they would not cook the numbers for him.
On eight use the hospitalization numbers for comparison, because these are in the main out of state control, but these are harder to get and compare.
I wouldn't call that a "scatterplot." The more common name is "2D histogram."
That visualization looks like it came right out of matplotlib.pyplot.hist2d, by the way.
Wait, doesn't lighter color indicate MORE likely to wear a mask?
Yes, I, too, think Kevin has it backwards.
In any case, it does not look like a big effect. But it also costs nothing (seeing that is mostly unenforceable by the state), so why not ? It's a nudge in the right direction...
There is a subset of Republican/conservatives who think that Trump, and probably also DeSantis is being stupid about Covid and will wear their masks and socially isolate. DeSantis makes the calculation that he doesn't care about them, he will get their votes by scaring them with "socialism". But if makes the crazies mad, they will stay home and not vote for him.
The whole business about interfering with local mask mandates seems to be kind of like an "anti flag burning law". Which we understand is doomed to be declared unconstitutional, but makes for great political theater in the meantime.
De Santis also has been cooking the mortality books about as long as Andrew Cuomo.
We really need to reconsider allowing Italians into executive office.
Nonsense.
https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/How-Ron-DeSantis-s-critics-are-turning-him-into-a-16080943.php
I wonder about a "secondary benefit" of a government-declared mask mandate. I live in the strongly Republican Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia. I am surrounded by a lot of otherwise nice guys who think masks are b.s. and don't wear them. Except, that is, for the times they have to wear them because they want to go into someplace that won't admit them without the mask. Like the grocery stores.
We have three grocery store chains here in Waynesboro. Martin's is somewhat upscale, Food Lion is definitely "downscale," and Walmart is ... well, it's Walmart. All three of those chains have signs stating they are complying with the Governor's mandate and requiring customers and tradespeople to mask up in order to enter the store. All three supply cheap disposable masks for the folks who show up without one.
Thanks to that, I have been able to shop for my groceries wherever I chose to. I can go to Martin's for meats and specialty items, Food Lion for fresh produce and miscellaneous canned and bottled goods, and Walmart for generic staples I buy in large quantities.
What that means is that [some of] the merchants in my town are making it safe for me to shop in their stores, not because their customers have learned to listen to the Governor, but because the merchants have the Governor to blame and can force compliance with what ought to be simple common sense.
I would never claim that my fellow citizens are highly compliant, so their statistics ought to be representative of risk-vs-cost for Western Virginia. But I certainly would claim that the Governor's action has made it a lot safer for those of us who pay attention, because of the influence it has on the "middle men" in the picture, the subset of merchants I can patronize.
I like that view. Governors giving businesses cover to require masks. Most of the signs here in Colorado do say, essentially, blame the governor.
I didn’t read the study, br
... but I have a few observations regarding the post.
First, as with all polls, there’s a BIG difference between SAYING and DOING. People may SAY they’re not going to wear a mask, perhaps because that’s what they want the pollster to hear, or perhaps because the6 really want to believe it, but when it comes to what they DO, especially in public, it’s often different. I think the same is true of, eg, polls about the Big Lie: a lot of people SAY they believe it, but they really don’t.
And second, at least in WV, actual behavior changed HUGELY after the governor’s mandate. Mask wearing jumped from a minority of perhaps 1/3 or 1/4 to a majority of 2/3 or 3/4, overnight. Only any data, but it was striking.
(And could we PLEASE have an edit function? Thank you)
“anecdata”
I find it a bit silly to compare states to states because they are so different in so many ways. I wouldn’t judge Florida by how well it is doing compared to New Mexico and Minnesota, because they are so different in terms of weather, geographic features, population density etc etc. The only thing that matters is whether deaths and hospital stays would decrease in Florida if they did things differently. And there will never be a way to say for sure. You could only look at the numbers and guess. I believe that whatever the numbers are in Florida , they would be better if they tried harder to fight the virus, because I trust the science and the experience of past pandemics. But I can’t prove it. I believe much of the latest surge, led by young people, can be blamed in part on Florida and other states going wide open for spring break. But we can’t 100 percent prove it. If governors and residents are willing to accept a certain number of deaths to save businesses, so be it.
Also the states are all huge that a state is not really a good way to segment this kind of data. While there has never been a statewide mask mandate in FL, there have been many local and county-wide mandates. I'm sure this is true in other states.
Well, nice try.
I mean that, actually, because an attempt to figure out causation of something as tenuous as a "mandate" by a governor is really a tough assignment.
I believe this is going to boil down to a complex soup of personal behavior over a large population set, taking into account population density, since for a large group of people living in small households of 6 is going to have a different result than a similar group living in larger households of 3 when we are dealing with an airborne virus which can be asympotomatic for weeks.
How about this, CA v. TX. Based on reported deaths per size of population, California is about 8,000 deaths better off performance wise, and that's only because of a .0014 death rate v. a .0016 death rate.
So, is that "a lot?" Well, 8,000 is a lot. But will the conservatives argue that an 8,000 difference is random and would have happened anyway?
As someone pointed out, wearing a mask costs pretty much nothing, so isn't it an easy answer? I would also argue that engaging in a mix of covid suppressing activities matters.
How Well Do Mask Mandates Work?
You can try to follow whatever Kevin is trying to do here, or you can refer to the CDC which has a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6947e2.htm"well-documented look at what happened in Kansas last year.
KS counties with a mask mandate: New Covid cases dropped 6%
KS counties without a mask mandate: New Covid cases surged 100%
You may want to caveat that it's one state at one point in time, but it's certainly evidence that mask mandates DO work.
Kevin implies that "mask mandates don't work because nobody pays attention to them." That's not only hogwash but dangerous misinformation.
How about an edit button, please?
Good point. I’ve seen/heard similar numbers in other states.
Any analysis involving Florida is doomed from the outset, becuase we know DeSantis has been cooking the Covid statistics. The data's not reliable, except as a lower bound.
Came here to say this.
Florida has blocked all release of Covid data, and has explicitly been mis-attributing any deaths that:
a) do not occur in a hospital, or
b) occur for someone admitted for any reason other than Covid, or
c) happen to someone not a Florida full-year resident, meaning no snowbirds who die of Covid are counted.
They may also be cooking the books beyond that, but that's just what we know today. When I last looked, sometime last fall, Florida had almost twice as many excess deaths during the period in question as attributed Covid deaths. (I want to say 30000ish vs 55000ish, but I really can't quite remember.)
The books are very, very cooked. Expect reality to be 2x claimed in Florida in particular.
Yes! A buddy of mine lives in Orlando, her mom had dementia and was a nursing home when COVID hit the state. The mom was a sitting duck and got COVID and died. The original death certificate listed cause of death as Dementia even though the mother was fairly healthy but for the dementia beforehand so my friend raised holy hell and got the corner's office to change the certificate to read COVID. If this was the regular practice of course Florida's stats would look pretty good.
Also the thing about them excluding tourists and snowbirds. Lots of people only live in Florida sometimes (and if they died there last year, weren't counted among the dead...)
NY Times is reporting 31k COVIDs vs 37k excess.
They're also saying California had 69k excess (why don't they use per-capita numbers?) but that doesn't seem right; last spring we had several months of fewer than normal deaths even with COVID.
*Cumulative* COVID-19 death rate per 100K persons, according to the CDC:
Mississippi - 237.1
Arizona - 233.4
South Dakota - 219.1
Arkansas - 187.2
South Carolina - 178.9
Texas - 164.7
Florida - 157.0
California - 148.1
Washington - 69.4
Oregon - 56.8
Hawaii - 32.8
Deaths in California in excess/reduction, based on other states' *cumulative* COVID-19 death rate:
MS: +35,400 dead Californians
AZ: +33,900
SD: +28,200
AR: +15,600
SC: +12,300
TX: +6,600
FL: +3,400
WA: -31,300
OR: -36,300
HI: -45,900
Nice work. One wonders what the blowback is to this statistic in some of these States.
What's that? None? Of course, what was I thinking. 🙂
Hawaii had mask mandates, imposed civil fines, and had extremely high compliance. Not being cooped up indoors during cold weather months (on the mainland) probably helped, too. People bitched a lot about the governor and the mayor of Honolulu (all of Oahu is part of the City and County of Honolulu), but they went along with the mandates.
Also remember Florida excluded snowbirds from its death statistics.
If the question is, "How well do mask mandates work?", I would suspect that one needs to be careful about other mitigating/influencing factors, namely:
1) Culture of the population, particularly acceptance of social cohesiveness.
2) Disparity of community cultures within a state, that offset.
3) Density of areas of those polled, which would tend to weigh on one's need to wear a mask, and likely offset.
4) Relayed information/news on the status of infection levels having an outsized influence on personal risk assessment -- rates are dropping, so it's okay for me to not wear a mask outdoors, etc.
Maybe the question should be are workers in local stores with mask requirements more or less likely to be attacked if the mask requirement is mandated by the state or just corporate policy?
On other thing to note: some states just won't change, e.g. MT and WV. Some states were pretty good at wearing masks before the mandate required it, e.g. CA and LA. And some states did see changes, e.g. TX, WA, OR, AL, NV, CO, etc.
Then you have things like Spring Break in FL. That really did seed outbreaks across the country. Colleges reopening in the fall was also a great way to generate new rounds of cases. Super spreader events can dishearten people and make them think the mask wearing is not helping.
Apparently some of the latest outbreaks have happened via youth sports leagues. So the schools aren't the spreaders it's the after school events when maybe folks are less careful.
If people were actually fined for not wearing masks it would be a different story, one with psychotic rioting, certainly, but different.
Civil fines were imposed in Hawaii. No rioting!
In addition, people who flew in and broke quarantine (when it was in place) were put on planes and sent back where they came from, with the threat of jail time if they refused to comply. As in most states that are heavily reliant on tourism, local folks have a love/hate relationship with visitors, but it was all hate when it came to tourists who broke quarantine and/or flouted mask mandates.
I live in Tampa, Florida and everyone wears masks when indoors in public places. The least time I’ve seen someone in a grocery store or some other such place without a mask was about a year ago. I’m sure that’s not the case in some places in FL but in the big population centers it is.
Yes, well-to-do people tend to follow recommendations. Because they can.
But there were also mandates in these locations and most businesses enacted their own mandates.
I like the new profile pic. Good to see you out getting some fresh air.
Tampa has lots of low and middle income residents. I used to live down there.
People who refuse masks don't engage in other risky behavior. They engage in other dipshittery. I'll bet they're no more likely to skydive but way more likely to think a million illegal immigrants voted in Georgia.
I think the 'risky behavior' that anti-maskers are likely to engage in is assembling in large groups without distancing, dining and/or drinking indoors, especially in crowded venues.
An alternative hypothesis to explain the small effect of mandates: the fraction of the population most likely to comply with a mandate were already following mask recommendations from the CDC or state or local health authorities. It would be nice to think that people were accepting the science, improbable as that might seem.
But when there's a mandate, it doesn't matter what people's opinions are: They are required to wear them in social situations. Or be ejected.
Which means a mask mandate gets me 100% compliance in all the locations I attend. Every store, every line, every restaurant.
Without the mandate, one of those no-mask nubbers will be in every one of these locations.
When I was still new to America a friend told me that the US is "the land of unenforceable laws". What I find though is that there are laws that are not enforced or not enforced on everyone. In the US there are indeed poorly enforced laws. Examples: Massachusetts requires a COVID test for people flying in from outside. We arrived at Logan airport last October with tests duly done. Nobody was there to check the paperwork. Tax laws remain unenforced on rich people--the GOP does that deliberately by refusing to staff the IRS properly (unless they make the mistake of running for President and winning...). Mask mandates are issued but not enforced--except by some private businesses.
Properly enforced mask mandates would probably have a more measurable effect. We need to remember that the main effect of masks is to protect those around an infected person, not to protect the wearer from infection (they appear to do that too but the effect is smaller). People in the West don't seem to be able to wrap their minds around collective action out of solidarity. By wearing masks we don't primarily protect ourselves; we protect the community as a whole--from which protection flows our personal benefit. Same idea for vaccines BTW.
The main value of the mandate may indeed be that they help restaurants, libraries, shops enforce their mandates. When the mandate was lifted in Florida business owners got screamed at for enforcing the mandate in their business--which is indisputably their right.
DeSantis really has given vaccines to wealthy donors in certain communities around Florida especially early on. And the problem with Publix is that it is an upper income grocery store primarily located in upper income neighborhoods. I’m a native Floridian and I watched my mom struggle to get an appointment for weeks. The vaccine rollout has been terrible here and Florida is 38th in the nation in getting people vaccinated while DeSantis opens the state to tourists. I saw the 60 minutes report and it may not have presented the case well for corruption but DeSantis continues to reward his donors while poor communities do not have access to the vaccine. Some of my moms friends in a particular subdivision all got vaccinated because someone in the community gave money to one of DeSantis super pacs. The cronyism runs deep under his leadership.
I dunno. I recommend you check out Rising, at The Hill, for 6 April. Krystal and Sagar gave a pretty thorough explanation of why the 60 Minutes story is a flat out lie. Also, too, Florida's fatality rate is not nearly the highest. I think that goes to New Jersey, following New York. Back to DeSantis, the most neutral source I can find is https://news.yahoo.com/60-minutes-dishonest-desantis-hit-163131883.html
They don't use the word "lie."