November, 2020
Lincoln – A new research paper from the KU Institute for Policy and Social Research concludes that mask mandates are an effective way to fight Covid-19. It analyzes the "natural experiment" underway in Kansas, previously discussed in an earlier post.
In Kansas, there was "a 50% reduction in the spread of COVID-19 in counties that had a mask mandate compared to those without." This is a profoundly encouraging finding if we have the will to learn from it.
Nebraska has a similar natural experiment underway, because mask mandates are in effect in Lancaster and Douglas counties but not elsewhere. NU researchers should do a similar study and go one obvious step further: hypothesize and test a causal relationship, that the higher a county's percentage vote on November 3rd for Donald Trump (notably opposed to mask mandates), the higher the county Covid cases per capita.
Aversion to masks and mask-mandates is observably rampant in rural Nebraska. It must be considered a cause of the spread of Covid locally and elsewhere. Going maskless is not just taking a risk with one's own life, it is an act of spreading the disease to others. Rural Covid surges are actually taking over urban hospitals. From the Lincoln Journal Star:
Hospitalizations continue to surge in Lancaster County..., setting a new daily hospital census record for the third consecutive day. The vast majority of those hospitalized...are not Lancaster County residents....
The spread of disease has causes. If this were the Bubonic Plague, we would be doing whatever we could to eliminate rats, fleas, and lice that spread it. Likewise, we should deal honestly with spread of Covid by those who insist that the disease is a hoax, that masks don't work, or that individual freedom is at stake in the matter of mask mandates.
Freedom is indeed at stake: the individual freedoms and the very lives of the victims of such beliefs and behaviors. "The freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."
It is shameful that our elected leaders will not use their positions to fight Covid for all they are worth, by changing the behaviors of the maskless with mandates. Mandates work. It is time to put politics totally aside and save lives. Enough with the years of false witness,* making victims of us all.
The KU study demonstrates a use of the tools of science to discover truth. May we read it – and heed it – north of the border.
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* See the Ninth Commandment.
