© Irfan Khan / Los Angeles TimesCommuters wear face masks at Union Station in Los Angeles. A clinical trial of the coronavirus-fighting ability of masks did not show that they helped, but researchers say the results actually strengthen the case for universal mask use.
(Though today's
ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, declaring the Biden administration's mask mandate for public transportation unlawful, comes as welcome news.)
Maskaholics in the press are calling for permanent masking on trains, planes, and buses. High school students in Seattle staged a protest demanding that a mask mandate be reinstated, and psychologists now deal with the anxieties of children who don't want their classmates to see their faces. They're suffering from "
mask dependency," as this psychological affliction is termed in Japan, where a long tradition of mask-wearing during flu season has left some individuals afraid at any time to expose their faces in public.
It's a difficult addiction to overcome, according to the Japanese therapists who specialize in treating it — but a simple remedy might help some maskaholics. It's a graph that should be required viewing for everyone still wearing a mask and every public official or journalist who still insists that mask mandates "control the spread."
© Graphs by Ian Miller
The graph tracks the results of a natural experiment that occurred nationwide during the pandemic. Eleven states never mandated masks, while the other 39 states enforced mandates. The mandates typically began early in the pandemic in 2020 and remained until at least the summer of 2021, with some extending into 2022. The black line on the graph shows the weekly rate of Covid cases in all the states with mask mandates that week, while the orange line shows the rate in all the states without mandates.
Comment: What an idiot.
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