What a Difference a Mask Makes

See the chart below. There are two interesting aspects. One is how the proportion of a population wearing masks helps with the number of cases, and then also how in the less populated states people have a higher chance of knowing someone who has been infected by the coronavirus. 

I guess masks do work — at least based on this chart. Of course, if you are a freedom-loving anti-mask advocate, facts don't matter!

Here is another tidbit on mask-wearing from the NY Times:

The power of mask mandates
They’re restrictive, tedious and hotly contested, but since the early days of the pandemic we’ve known masks to be an efficient and cost-effective way to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

And they’re even better, it turns out, when you oblige people to wear them. Take Kansas, where a real-world experiment in face coverings emerged this summer. In early July, Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, issued a statewide mask order, but was forced to let counties opt out of it under a law limiting her emergency management powers.

Only 20 of the state’s 105 counties enforced the order, which required residents to wear masks in public. Those 20 counties saw half as many new coronavirus infections as the counties that did not have the mandate in place, according to a new study from the University of Kansas.

Cellphone-tracking data from the University of Maryland showed no differences in how often people left home in the counties with or without mask mandates, so it seemed likely that the masks made the difference.

Experts say it’s part of a countrywide trend: Localities that impose mask mandates often see fewer cases, fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths and lower test-positivity rates than nearby localities that do not. Other studies have turned up similar results in Alabama, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. A recently published report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a 75 percent drop in coronavirus cases in Arizona less than a month after mask-wearing became enforced and bars and gyms were shuttered.