New Wake County mask mandates are back. This time a bit early, just before the kids go back to school, in August. And also this time, they are very tricky. The way this goes so far is that you have to wear a mask in one store, and you can go maskless into the store across the street. Why? And what science are the mask mandates based upon? Let’s take a closer look.
Wake County Mask Mandates
Reality is that cases are on the rise. So, let’s put the masks on says the Wake County. And this is how:
Wake County Board of Commissioners Chairman Matt Calabria said the county is still moving forward with a mask mandate. It would apply in municipalities where mayors approve it, like Raleigh, and in unincorporated parts of the county
And why is Calabria moving forward with mask mandates? “The CDC has shown time and again that mask mandates do drive down infection rates,” Calabria said. “It also provides cover, frankly, for businesses and for establishments that really want to have all their folks masked.” To put this in laymen’s terms, CDC said that they work, and we just want to provide alibi for everyone, including ourselves.
CDC Science on Mask Efficacy
While the CDC does support mask wearing and lists many studies, it also hopes no one reads the studies they list on their website. In its texts the CDC states various possibilities, but rarely any definite claims, for example:
Multi-layer cloth masks can both block up to 50-70% of these fine droplets and particles and limit the forward spread of those that are not captured.
CDC describes the permeability of masks in quite a detail, but doesn’t really focus on the control of the virus itself. The virus does not spread only through the droplets. Focusing only on the large or small droplets does not capture the entire picture. Going through the article you’ll see one scientifically significant study regarding masks efficacy on slowing the spread. And the conclusions of this study performed between June and August 2020 in Kansas are:
Estimated case rate per 100,000 decreased by 0.08 in counties with mask mandates but increased by 0.11 in those without.
A second study, listed just below this one on the CDC page offers more science, which exposes the little to no difference mask wearing makes:
Estimated overall initial daily decline in new diagnoses of 0.9%, grew to 2.0% at 21 days following mandates.
After 21 days the infection numbers drop by up to 2%. In the science world, any conclusion with impact of 2% or less could also be tolerated margin of error.
Conclusions
In reality, if you can lower infection rate by 2% in a population of 350,000,000 people, then of course, this translates into 7,000,000 cases. But again, cases, not dead, not hospitalized, just cases. And even in these studies none of the scientists dare to claim anything definite. Their conclusions are full of words like suggests, could, possible, most likely, we think and so on. Science must arrive at definite conclusions. Possibilities focusing on decimal percentage points are not reliable scientific conclusions.
It will be interesting to see what happens in Wake County if only 3 municipalities implement mandates and the rest will not. Whether those without mandates will also see a drop in cases in 14-21 days. Will the mayors that implemented mandates claim glory that they saved Wake County, or will the mayors without mandates say, “See the virus took its course, masks, or no masks. At the end, we arrived at the same point, regardless of all the discussion and huge political gestures.”
These are the discussions we must be having and that are currently lacking in the media and politics.