Study says masks sharply reduce coronavirus infections

SANDUSKY — A new study in Germany suggests that widespread adoption of wearing face masks can sharply reduce the transmission of COVID-19. "We believe that the reduction in the growth rates of infections by 40 percent to 60 percent is our best estimate of the effects of face masks," says a 31-page paper issued by four European scholars. "We should also stress that 40 to 60 percent might still be a lower bound. The daily growth rates in the number of infections when face masks were introduced was around 2 to 3 percent. These are very low growth rates compared to the early days of the epidemic in Germany, where daily growth rates also lay above 50 percent," the paper says. "One might therefore conjecture that the effects might have been even greater if masks had been introduced earlier." The paper titled "Face Masks Considerably Reduce COVID-19 Cases in Germany: A Synthetic Control Method Approach" is available for downloading and is available via a June 10 posting at the Marginal Revolution economics blog, marginalrevolution.com. The paper was issued by the Institute of Labor Economics, a nonprofit research institute in Bonn, Germany. Face masks were made compulsory in Germany from April 20-29 and were made mandatory in certain areas of Germany even earlier. Germany had 8,752 COVID-19 deaths as of Wednesday, far below the United Kingdom (41,913), Italy (34,114), France and Spain. Germany has a higher population than any of those other four countries. Germany even has fewer deaths than Belgium. Health authorities in Ohio and the U.S. have stressed wearing masks, but say masks should be combined with social distancing, washing hands frequently for at least 20 seconds and avoiding crowds.