I find these graphs from Vanderbilt to be particularly compelling (page 2) evidence of the effectiveness of mask mandates on general public wellbeing. What do you think? Anything I should be reconsidering?
while the report is clearly written to support masking mandates, they do provide the (counter-)explanation on page 3:
> "As in our August report, we stress that areas with masking requirements also have seen greater changes in other community behavior (e.g., lower mobility to higher-risk points of interest) and may also have other virus mitigation strategies in place, so the observed relationship is likely not just about masking."
the mitigative effects of the masking order is drowned out by concurrent, confounding mitigations, which aren't detailed unfortunately. i'd contend that the concurrent effects of a masking order is likely very minor (<10% of the overall effect), because distancing and reduced social interaction does the overwhelming bulk of the work, but that data is left out of the report.
that's not to say masks are always useless; they have a critical role in (health-)care settings and for essential workers who interact closely with many other people daily. but that's a tiny slice of daily interactions and a nuance that gets drowned out by the mediopolitical machine incentivized by conspicous credit, not solution (biden is already doubling-down, talking about a national mask mandate as his first order of business).
the report includes some other interesting (counter-)information (like the counter-effectiveness of "Safer At Home" orders as exhibited in figure 2), but i'll leave it there for now.
> "As in our August report, we stress that areas with masking requirements also have seen greater changes in other community behavior (e.g., lower mobility to higher-risk points of interest) and may also have other virus mitigation strategies in place, so the observed relationship is likely not just about masking."
the mitigative effects of the masking order is drowned out by concurrent, confounding mitigations, which aren't detailed unfortunately. i'd contend that the concurrent effects of a masking order is likely very minor (<10% of the overall effect), because distancing and reduced social interaction does the overwhelming bulk of the work, but that data is left out of the report.
that's not to say masks are always useless; they have a critical role in (health-)care settings and for essential workers who interact closely with many other people daily. but that's a tiny slice of daily interactions and a nuance that gets drowned out by the mediopolitical machine incentivized by conspicous credit, not solution (biden is already doubling-down, talking about a national mask mandate as his first order of business).
the report includes some other interesting (counter-)information (like the counter-effectiveness of "Safer At Home" orders as exhibited in figure 2), but i'll leave it there for now.