Date: June 7 2021
Summary: How mask mandates could be correlated with on site dining and COVID death and growth rates
Keywords: #covid #growth #death #mask #mandates #policy #restaurants #archive
G. P. Guy et al., "Association of State-Issued Mask Mandates and Allowing On-Premises Restaurant Dining with County-Level COVID-19 Case and Death Growth Rates — United States, March 1–December 31, 2020," MMWR Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep., vol. 70, no. 10, pp. 350–354, Mar. 2021, doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm7010e3.
State-issued mask mandates: Required to wear masks at:
Outside home
Businesses and food establishments.
State-issued restaurant closures: Restaurants not operating or restricting service to takeout, curbside pickup, or delivery.
Providing indoor or outdoor on-premises dining: State lifting a restaurant closure. No distinction was made on how restaurants reopened (such as with reduced capacity, enhanced sanitation, etc.). Per states, if a bar served food, it was coded as a restaurant and if a bar did not serve food, there were bars.
(1) Daily growth rate :
Analyses were weighted by county population; standard errors were robust to heteroscedasticity; clustered by state.
Relationship between policies and COVID-19 measured 1–20 days prior to implementation compared with seven mutually exclusive time ranges post-implementation. Associations were examined 60 - 41 and 40 - 21 days before implementation and 1–20, 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days after implementation.
COVID-19 case and death growth rates were compared via weighted least-squares regression with county and day fixed effects. Four regression models were used for associating mandates and COVID-19 growth rates by controlling for:
Restaurant closures in mask mandate models
Mask mandates in the restaurant reopening models
Bar closures
Stay-at-home orders
Bans on gatherings of >= 10 persons
Daily COVID-19 tests per 100000 persons
County
Day
QUESTION: I wonder how they controlled for these covariate variables?
Decreases in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates over these day ranges post-mask mandate implementation were seen:
1 - 20
21 - 40
41 - 60
61 - 80
81 - 100
Permitting on-premises dining saw increases in daily COVID-19 case growth rates
41 - 60
61 - 80
81 - 100
days after reopening.
Increases in daily COVID-19 death growth rates were observed
61 - 80
81 - 100
days after reopening.
During March 1–December 31, 2020, state-issued mask mandates applied in 2,313 (73.6%) of the 3,142 U.S. counties. Post mask mandate COVID case growth rates:
1 - 20 days: -0.5% (p = 0.02)
21 - 40 days: -1.1% (p < 0.01 for all)
41 - 60 days: -1.5% (p < 0.01 for all)
61 - 80 days: -1.7% (p < 0.01 for all)
81 -100 days: -1.8% (p < 0.01 for all)
Post mask mandate COVID death growth rates:
1 - 20 days: -0.7% (p = 0.03)
21 - 40 days: -1.0% (p < 0.01 for all)
41 - 60 days: -1.4% (p < 0.01 for all)
61 - 80 days: -1.6% (p < 0.01 for all)
81 -100 days: -1.9% (p < 0.01 for all)
QUESTION: Oh so does this suggest that it took about 20 days before we started to see the lagging effects of these mandates?
After > 40 days on-premises dining was permitted, increases in case and death growth rates were observed. Possible explanations:
Restaurants may have delayed reopening after on-premises dining allowed
Restaurant patrons cautious at reopen but grew bolder as time passed.
Models not control for other policies like: other types of business closures, physical distancing recommendations, policies issued by localities, and county-level policy variances.
Policy compliance and enforcement not explored.
No differentiating indoor and outdoor dining, ventilation, and following physical distancing and occupancy not investigated.
Zelko, Jacob. Association of State-Issued Mask Mandates and Allowing On-Premises Restaurant Dining with County-Level COVID-19 Case and Death Growth Rates - United States, March 1 - December 31, 2020. https://jacobzelko.com/06072021210734-mask-mandates-association. June 7 2021.