{"id":1203,"date":"2021-03-08T08:19:24","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T13:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1203"},"modified":"2021-03-08T08:19:24","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T13:19:24","slug":"what-is-the-scientific-communitys-response-to-states-lifting-mask-mandates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1203","title":{"rendered":"What is the scientific community&#8217;s response to states lifting mask mandates?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Question:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0What is the collective response from the scientific community about so many states now lifting their mask mandates?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Answer:<\/span><\/strong> You&#8217;d be hard pressed to find many (any?) public health experts who support lifting mask mandates at this point in the pandemic.\u00a0 Just yesterday, Dr. Fauci cautioned\u00a0against lifting COVID mitigation measures <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FaceTheNation\/status\/1368588176042954754\">during an interview with CBS&#8217;s<em>\u00a0Face the Nation<\/em><\/a>\u00a0stating, &#8220;don&#8217;t turn the switch on and off because it really would be risky to have yet again another surge, which we do not want to happen, because we&#8217;re plateauing a quite a high level&#8211; 60K-70K new infections per day is quite high.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And just this past Friday, CDC&#8217;s <em>MMWR<\/em> published this research article, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/volumes\/70\/wr\/mm7010e3.htm?s_cid=mm7010e3_w\">Association of State-Issued Mask Mandates and Allowing On-Premises Restaurant Dining with County-Level COVID-19 Case and Death Growth Rates<\/a>, which found that implementing mask mandates was associated with reduced SARS-CoV-2 transmission, infections, and deaths, whereas\u00a0reopening restaurants for on-premises dining was associated with increased transmission, infections, and deaths (<strong>Figure 1<\/strong>).\u00a0 The researchers emphasized, &#8220;Policies that require universal mask use and restrict any on-premises restaurant dining are important components of a comprehensive strategy to reduce exposure to and transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Such efforts are increasingly important given the emergence of highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants in the United States.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Figure 1. Mask Mandates Slowed Cases and Deaths <\/strong>(from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/volumes\/70\/wr\/mm7010e3.htm?s_cid=mm7010e3_w\">CDC<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"723\" height=\"407\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-4.png?resize=723%2C407&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-4.png?resize=1024%2C577&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-4.png?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-4.png?resize=768%2C433&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-4.png?w=1032&amp;ssl=1 1032w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 723px) 100vw, 723px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question:\u00a0What is the collective response from the scientific community about so many states now lifting their mask mandates?\u00a0 \u00a0 Answer: You&#8217;d be hard pressed to find many (any?) public health experts who support lifting mask mandates at this point in the pandemic.\u00a0 Just yesterday, Dr. Fauci cautioned\u00a0against lifting COVID mitigation measures during an interview with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[50,100,60,17,47],"tags":[89],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guidelines","category-masks","category-risk","category-risk-reduction","category-states","tag-restaurants","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/image-4.png?fit=1032%2C582&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1205,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions\/1205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}