The first duty of any government is to protect its citizens, but you don’t have to be a libertarian absolutist to have noticed that COVID has been a gift that keeps on giving when it comes to the desire of federal, state and local governments to seize more power to deal with an emergency that never seems to end.
While cases of COVID-19 have fluctuated over the past two years, the number of deaths has fallen tremendously in places where vaccination rates are high. As this chart of New York City shows, deaths increased along with COVID cases in the summer of 2020. Yet a year later, even as cases spiked, the number of deaths didn’t rise as much. Today, more than 85 percent of adults in the city are vaccinated and the number of deaths over a seven-day average since June has rarely risen above 20, with multiple weeks of no deaths. When Omicron comes to the United States, the number of new cases won’t matter as much as hospitalizations and deaths — particularly since South African medical officials say symptoms are usually mild.NY Post composite
To give an idea of how ventilation increases the time to infectious dose compared to cloth (typical) masking, below is a table created using model calculations created by Dr. Lisa Brosseau, an expert with over 30 years of experience in PPE and particle filtration:
Although this table was created to illustrate the potential for high-quality respirators to decrease time to infectious dose (for workers in high-risk situations), you can also see the advantages of increased ventilation. As ACH [Air Changes Per Hour] increases, the time to infectious dose increases much more significantly than with face coverings, with differences that can be measured in hours for ventilation compared to minutes for masking. [Emphasis Added]
The U.S. is one of the few countries still recommending masks in schools as most nations let kids attend classes without face coverings.
Although states are allowed to set their own rules, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests universal indoor masking for all students above age two regardless of vaccination status.
In fact, 68.2 percent of the 500 of the largest school districts in America still require masks, according to data analytics firm Burbio.
But there are only six other nations in the Western world that require or strongly advise kids to cover their noses and mouths. [Emphasis added]
Meanwhile, more than a dozen other countries, including the UK, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Australia have since dropped their mask mandates or never had them begin with.
From Congressional Budget Office, "CBO’s Economic Forecasting Record: 2019 Update" Presentation by Edward Gamber, analyst in CBO’s Macroeconomic Analysis Division, to OECD’s Working Party of Senior Budget Officials, November 5, 2021:
