Wearing a Mask is a Smart Investment
Introduction
The U.S. is losing more than 6 million jobs each week, a rate that we have not witnessed in the past 50 years or, frankly, ever. Estimates suggest that the current unemployment rate is around 13% and some economists predict that soon we will reach 20% unemployment, with a “COVID Depression” looking more and more likely.[1] As displayed in Figure 1, the increase in those filing for unemployment insurance the week of March 29 looks preposterously large compared to historical data. An additional 6 million plus people lost their jobs this past week too.
Figure 1:
This dramatic economic decline is a cost that policymakers largely have agreed is required to protect our personal health and the fundamental health of the economy. The U.S. concluded that the risk from COVID-19 (aka coronavirus) was so great that we should choose to pre-emptively lose our jobs, our means of paying rent/mortgage, and our means of putting food on the table. Macroeconomists, health economists, and public health experts who have spent much of their lifetimes thinking about these types of problems generally agree that “pausing the economy” is the right thing to do.
Wear a mask, the cost of doing otherwise is too great
If you disagree with the decision to pause the economy, then wearing a mask may be the quickest way to help get back to normal. If you agree with pausing the economy, then we should all do something as inexpensive as wear a simple, homemade mask every time we leave our homes. By sacrificing large parts of the economy, society has revealed that the cost of COVID-19 spreading further is greater than the cost of causing job loss for so many of our family members, friends, neighbors, and fellow humans. Wearing a mask every time we leave our homes is a simple, complementary step we can take to help share this burden, and protect each other and ourselves as we begin to navigate our way to a new normal.
Currently, levels of mask wearing in most of the U.S. are very, very low. An informal survey conducted through my front window in a large metropolitan area over the past week reveals that approximately 3% of individuals walking, jogging, or bicycling are wearing a mask. Photos from New York City, for example, reveal possibly higher levels of mask-wearing, yet these photos typically are selected by journalists to highlight a particular issue, and should not be suggested as the results of a representative survey. Of course my window-based survey includes some margin of error, but levels of mask-wearing clearly are very low. Fortunately, we can change this.
Three easy steps
There are three easy steps each of us can do to rapidly increase mask-wearing.
1. Wear a homemade mask every time you leave your home.
When you wear a mask, it helps adjust the social norm to one where everyone wears a mask. In this sense, wearing a mask is “infectious” in that it is likely to cause others to wear a mask.
Epidemiologists talk about R0 (or R-naught), the expected number of infections generated by a new infection. Research indicates that R0 for COVID-19 likely is between around three and six.[2]
For a social norm of mask-wearing to take hold, we only need a R0 for mask-wearing greater than one. That is, when you wear your mask outside of your home, it only needs to induce more than one person to wear a mask. Over the course of a month of mask-wearing, you could induce many people to also wear a mask, yielding a cascade of benefits to you and your community.
2. Ensure that masks are widely available.
My first recommendation is a key step toward increasing demand for mask-wearing, yet what about the supply of masks? The Federal government, state and local governments, businesses, and civic society groups should do everything in their power to make basic masks available to us all. The government of Turkey is distributing five masks per week to each of its citizens.[3] This could be an easy goal in the U.S. too. In the interim, while masks designed for essential, frontline healthcare workers (e.g., N95s) are in short supply, we should be making and wearing homemade masks.
Are you handy with sewing? Do you have a stash of materials at home? Make masks for your social network. Make masks for local charitable organizations to distribute to those in need. Basic masks can and should be as widely available as anything in our society. They are very low cost to produce and yield a tremendous social benefit.
Never sewed anything in your life? Do not own a needle, thread, or fabric? No worries. Make masks out of everyday items such as a dish towel and hair ties/rubber bands[4], a t-shirt[5], a scarf, or even boxer briefs.[6]
3. Put pressure on elected officials, government bureaucrats, business leaders, and non-profits to provide rapid, clear, coordinated, and consistent information about the pandemic.
Most national governments have committed one or more major missteps in their response to the global pandemic. One key mistake was delaying the release of information about the eminent pandemic. In the U.S., a second key mistake was telling us that we should not wear masks, masks cannot protect us, and that masks are only for healthcare workers.
Only through citizens working to hold governments and businesses accountable for their policies, will we be able to ensure that key decision-makers and spokespeople are giving us the correct information at the precise moment when we need this information. Although many of us may be tired of thinking about COVID-19 and about the government response, tuning out now and writing off current and future anti-COVID public health efforts is not the answer.
Conclusion
In summary, it does not make sense to choose to “pause the economy” yet choose to not wear a mask. The economy is paused, let us all wear masks.
Addendum
The U.S Centers for Disease Control (CDC) states: “Cloth face coverings should not be placed on young children under age 2, anyone who has trouble breathing, or is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance.”[7]
Sources:
Source, Figure 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/09/66-million-americans-filed-unemployed-last-week-bringing-pandemic-total-over-17-million/
Raw Data, Figure 1: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED, Initial Claims (ICSA) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/09/66-million-americans-filed-unemployed-last-week-bringing-pandemic-total-over-17-million/
[2] https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article
[3] https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/turkey-to-deliver-5-free-masks-a-week-to-each-citizen/news
[4] https://mashable.com/video/cdc-face-mask-how-to/
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/06/how-to-make-no-sew-face-mask-coronavirus
[6] https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/04/06/an-oregon-dentist-showed-us-how-to-make-covid-19-face-masks-out-of-boxer-shorts/
[7] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html
