It’s time to stop pushing masks and focus on vaccines
MINOT, N.D. — In Fargo, despite rising number COVID-19 cases, Mayor Tim Mahoney says he doesn’t believe the public would accept a new mask mandate.
“I think it would be extremely hard to do a mask mandate,” the mayor, who is also a physician, told reporter Patrick Springer.
That’s a correct observation, from a political perspective. In the world of public policy, there is often a divide between what the public should do and what the public is willing to do.
And when it comes to mask mandates, specifically, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that they don’t do as much as we’d like to curb the impact of COVID-19.
For instance, research from the US Army Institute of Surgical Research and the Brooke Army Medical Center, looking at mask mandate in Bexar County (San Antonio), Texas, found no evidence that mask requirements there reduced the impact of COVID-19.
