Do masks work? Better yet, do we really need to ask?
Apparently so.
OK. But as the national debate on whether masks inhibit the spread of COVID-19 goes on far beyond its logical conclusion, what should be a new closing argument has just been made. In Kansas, of all places.
The state’s 15 counties with mandatory mask orders — including Wyandotte and Johnson counties in the Kansas City area — have seen a greater decline in coronavirus cases than the remaining 90 counties that don’t mandate them.
Since July 12, not long after counties were given the option of accepting or rejecting Gov. Laura Kelly’s mask mandate, those with mask orders have seen cases decline from about 26 to 16 per 100,000 population. Cases in counties with no mask mandate have stayed relatively flat.
In a state as geographically diverse as Kansas — the 15 mandatory-mask counties contain about two-thirds of the state’s population — there are plenty of variables. Density of population is only one of them. Still, an armchair comparison tells you that masks have made a marked difference in the Sunflower State.
All of the decline in cases, says Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Dr. Lee Norman, “comes from those counties wearing masks.”
“Masks work,” says Dr. Sanmi Areola, director of the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment. Johnson County’s average number of cases has leveled off and even declined under the mask mandate — “from a high of 116 cases per day the week of July 12 to 90 cases per day last week,” Areola told The Star Friday.
Wyandotte County has seen an even steeper decline in its seven-day rolling average of new COVID-19 cases since the mask mandate, from 93 to 59.
“That is encouraging to us,” Dr. K. Allen Greiner, medical officer for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas Health Department, told county leaders about the difference that mask usage is making. “We think it’s a major way we can control all this.”
Norman used a chart in his press conference Wednesday that some took issue with, noting that the two lines on the graph — one depicting case trends in counties with mask mandates, the other in counties without a mandate — were actually on different axes. That made the case decline in counties with a mandate look more dramatic.
If that was intentional, it was completely unnecessary. The drop is already dramatic and is a statement of the power of masks.
In addition, the office of Kansas Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, a Republican from Overland Park, has been doing its own tracking of mask mandates, and the office is seeing the same positive case trend in mask-mandated counties that Norman is reporting.
“We have focused our monitoring on the 10 most populated counties and the three ‘hot’ counties out west — Ford, Finney, and Seward,” Denning told The Star in an email. “Of those counties, we are seeing similar patterns Dr. Norman mentioned and reported on. Mask wearing is very effective in slowing down the virus spread.
“In Johnson County, the spread was growing exponentially through July 17. The virus doubling time in Johnson County has increased to 51 days as of Aug. 6, from 14 days as of July 8. The higher the doubling time number, the better. Johnson County has high mask compliance, and the doubling time clearly shows mask compliance will slow down the virus spread by snuffing out a virus incubation period.”
Masks do work. The Kansas experience has proved it.
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 5:00 AM.