Compulsory Face Mask Policies Do not Affect Community Mobility in Germany

Kovacs, Roxanne; Dunaiski, Maurice; Tukiainen, Janne

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3620070

Cited by 17 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…For example, in Figure 8, transit intensity for a median state was approximately -50% at its lowest point in early April. The estimated policy coefficients in columns imply that imposing all policies would lead to roughly 75% (in column 4) or roughly 35% (in column 26 Similar to our finding, Kovacs, Dunaiski, and Tukiainen (2020) find no evidence that introduction of compulsory face mask policies affect community mobility in Germany.…”

Section: Empirical Analysissupporting

confidence: 67%

Causal Impact of Masks, Policies, Behavior on Early Covid-19 Pandemic in the U.S

Chernozhukov

Kasahara²,

Schrimpf³

2020

Preprint

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This paper evaluates the dynamic impact of various policies adopted by US states on the growth rates of confirmed Covid-19 cases and deaths as well as social distancing behavior measured by Google Mobility Reports, where we take into consideration people's voluntarily behavioral response to new information of transmission risks. Our analysis finds that both policies and information on transmission risks are important determinants of Covid-19 cases and deaths and shows that a change in policies explains a large fraction of observed changes in social distancing behavior. Our counterfactual experiments suggest that nationally mandating face masks for employees on April 1st could have reduced the growth rate of cases and deaths by more than 10 percentage points in late April, and could have led to as much as 17 to 55 percent less deaths nationally by the end of May, which roughly translates into 17 to 55 thousand saved lives. Our estimates imply that removing non-essential business closures (while maintaining school closures, restrictions on movie theaters and restaurants) could have led to -20 to 60 percent more cases and deaths by the end of May. We also find that, without stay-at-home orders, cases would have been larger by 25 to 170 percent, which implies that 0.5 to 3.4 million more Americans could have been infected if stay-at-home orders had not been implemented. Finally, not having implemented any policies could have led to at least a 7 fold increase with an uninformative upper bound in cases (and deaths) by the end of May in the US, with considerable uncertainty over the effects of school closures, which had little cross-sectional variation.

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Section: Empirical Analysissupporting

confidence: 67%

Causal Impact of Masks, Policies, Behavior on Early Covid-19 Pandemic in the U.S

Chernozhukov

Kasahara²,

Schrimpf³

2020

Preprint

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“…Moreover, using data from the U.S., [23] found that mobility decreased in most settings when the policy of masks for employees started in a state. Mask mandates in Germany were associated first with a decreased mobility but had no long-term effect [24]. Finally, a paper using the store-level data from Germany documents that the mask mandate was not associated with a change in the distance keeping around the experimenter [22].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Face masks to prevent transmission of respiratory diseases: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials^*

Ollila

Partinen

Koskela

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and spreads through droplet-mediated transmission on contaminated surfaces and in air. Mounting scientific evidence from observational studies suggests that face masks for the general public may reduce the spread of infections. However, results from randomized control trials (RCT) have been presented as inconclusive, and concerns related to the safety and efficacy of non-surgical face masks in non-clinical settings remain. This controversy calls for a meta-analysis which considers non-compliance in RCTs, the time-lag in benefits of universal masking, and possible adverse effects. Methods: We performed a meta-analysis of RCTs of non-surgical face masks in preventing viral respiratory infections in non-hospital and non-household settings at cumulative and maximum follow-up as primary endpoints. The search for RCTs yielded five studies published before May 29th, 2020. We pooled estimates from the studies and performed random-effects meta-analysis and mixed-effects meta-regression across studies, accounting for covariates in compliance vs. non-compliance in treatment. Results: Face masks decreased infections across all studies at maximum follow-up (p=0.0318$, RR=0.608 [0.387 - 0.956]), and particularly in studies without non-compliance bias. We found significant between-study heterogeneity in studies with bias (I^2=71.2%, p=0.0077). We also used adjusted meta-regression to account for heterogeneity. The results support a significant protective effect of masking (p=0.0006, beta=0.0214, SE= 0.0062). No severe adverse effects were detected. Interpretation: The meta-analysis of existing randomized control studies found support for the efficacy of face masks among the general public. Our results show that face masks protect populations from infections and do not pose a significant risk to users. Recommendations and clear communication concerning the benefits of face masks should be provided to limit the number of COVID-19 and other respiratory infections.

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“…4. Importantly, the likelihood of mass tourism and business travel had no effect on explaining the variability of either the number of cases or the arrival times, which distinguishes Poland from other countries like Germany (Felbermayr et al (2020); Kovacs et al (2020)) or USA (Killeen et al (2020)). This can be explained by the still low purchasing power of Poles (an average Pole travels abroad touristically 5 times less often than a German (Delhey et al (2019))).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

An attempt to optimize human resources allocation based on spatial diversity of COVID-19 cases in Poland

Jarynowski¹,

Wójta-Kempa²,

Krzowski³

2020

Preprint

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Our task is to examine the relationship between the SARS-CoV-2 arrival and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the first wave (period from March 4 to May 22, 2020 (unofficial data)), and socio-economic variables at the powiat (county) level (NUTS-4) using simple statistical techniques such as data visualization, correlation analysis, spatial clustering and multiple linear regression. We showed that immigration and the logarithm of general mobility is the best predictor of SARS-CoV-2 arrival times, while emigration, industrialization and air quality explain the most of the size of the epidemic in poviats. On the other hand, infection dynamics is driven to a lesser extent by previously postulated variables such as population size and density, income or the size of the elderly population. Our analyses could support Polish authorities in preparation for the second wave of infections and optimal management of resources as we have provided a proposition of optimal distribution of human resources between poviats.

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Compulsory Face Mask Policies Do not Affect Community Mobility in Germany

Cited by 17 publications

References 43 publications

Causal Impact of Masks, Policies, Behavior on Early Covid-19 Pandemic in the U.S

Causal Impact of Masks, Policies, Behavior on Early Covid-19 Pandemic in the U.S

Face masks to prevent transmission of respiratory diseases: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials^*

An attempt to optimize human resources allocation based on spatial diversity of COVID-19 cases in Poland

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Compulsory Face Mask Policies Do not Affect Community Mobility in Germany

Cited by 17 publications

References 43 publications

Causal Impact of Masks, Policies, Behavior on Early Covid-19 Pandemic in the U.S

Causal Impact of Masks, Policies, Behavior on Early Covid-19 Pandemic in the U.S

Face masks to prevent transmission of respiratory diseases: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials*

An attempt to optimize human resources allocation based on spatial diversity of COVID-19 cases in Poland

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Face masks to prevent transmission of respiratory diseases: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials^*