Wearing masks reduces the medical costs of COVID-19
By Lethbridge Herald on August 4, 2022.
Auston Mardon and Jonathan Wiebe
To say that masks have been a divisive topic over the course of the pandemic would be a bit of an understatement. Arguments have been raised in favour and defense of masks and the policies implemented surrounding them as well as strongly against them, with many officials and the vast majority of scientists in relevant fields finding themselves in the former camp.
Arguments have ranged from the notion that being mildly inconvenienced for the safety of self and others is tantamount to oppression, to questioning the point or efficacy of the mandates and masks themselves, all the way to people finding the benefits of masks to extend past the pandemic to the point where they will continue to use them for the foreseeable future. However, despite this range of arguments, one topic that has seen little daylight where the majority of these complaints and arguments raged on is the economic value, good or bad, of masks – surprising given the arguments leveled by some that, rather than following all the mandates and precautions to the letter in order to get through the pandemic faster, we should have actively let more people fall ill and die in the name of helping the economy.
The most obvious way masks impact the economy is through reducing medical costs by reducing the spread of the virus and as such lowering the cost of care and treatment, and by helping to reduce losses to productivity due to illness. Again though, these are fairly obvious ones that likely most anyone could come to on their own. Where things get more interesting however, are in the studies, such as one from Washington University, which have found that mask usage and mandates lead to an increase in consumer spending. More specific than this though, a study by the University of Utah found that when the mask mandates were statewide there is a larger boost to the economy than when only mandated at the county level.
The studies concluded that these results were due to the impact mask usage had on consumer confidence; generally speaking, the usage of masks made people feel safer to go out and spend, but when the mandates were only at the county level, it sometimes made people feel as though their county specifically was at higher risk, causing a decrease instead.
So, when people felt safer to spend, they were more likely to – important results, given that authors of the first study also estimated that, had every state chosen to follow safety mandates as poorly as the worst in the name of economics, over 80,000 more people would have died in the United States, for only a nine per cent decrease in losses due to the pandemic. Hopefully these studies will demonstrate that we can take care of each other and the economy at the same time.
Austin Mardon is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta, a Lethbridge senator, an alumnus of the University of Lethbridge, and is a recipient of the Order of Canada
Jonathan Wiebe is a student currently pursuing a master’s in Counselling Psychology at Yorkville University.
9-8
Some would say this is not comparable, but, would anyone wish for their surgical team to, not, wear masks during their open abdominal surgery? That masks are effective is well known by medical teams. This is precisely why front line health care staff still wear masks in health care facilities for their whole shift because, it is, known….that masks are effective at preventing airborne spread. Not only does covid spread by air but now, it is believed that monkeypox can be, as well, let alone the flu, colds….Many other folks from other cultures around the world wear masks in public even if they have ‘only,’ a cold. It is not that much of a hardship. As the saying goes, this resistance to wearing masks could be described as ‘being weak and lacking discipline.’
true enough, an awful lot of people in japan and china were wearing masks many years before covid leaked out of a lab in china, and the people in those nations hardly got affected by covid at all. they have even extincted colds and flus there.
yes, let us all wear masks at all times, so natural and all, while we wait for evolution to etch them into our physical being.
No, just when it’s reasonably needed. 🙂
yes, when performing a surgery. 🙂
all the negs on this one – not agreeing that doctors should wear masks even during surgeries?
Biff your a moron. Masks are a viable form of prevention of germs and pathogens. You may not want your body to not be violated then why should one not allow you to infect others. If you refuse to wear a mask to prevent you spreading a virrus then you should be forced to issolate. If you refuse to wear a mask to prevent yourself from being infected then you should not whine if you can’t be treated because the er/icus are full. You must be one of those morons that still goes to work etc if sick and spread your germs to others so that they have to use their sick leave for other than severe medical issues. The work jerk as we called those that spread their infections. Mask are not 100% but are effective in reduction.
haha! yokel-ville. not worry, folks, i always wear the masks when so ordered. they are not a violation; just a dress code. if nothing else, the placebo effect has some merit…and placebo is scientifically proven. besides that, what better air is there to breathe than that through which you have been exhaling for hours. as for going to work sick, i love time off and am most happy to have a good excuse for staying home. i know i know, so now i am lazy and it’s no wonder our gdp lags behind nations with higher gdps….
interesting final line in your entry…not 100% but are effective in reduction. hmm, you mean like the weasel phrase, “up to 50% more?” when do we think the “new and improved” series of masks will be arriving? bandwagon appeal: “everybody’s wearing them!” ok, seriously, masks are good because 4 out of scientists, and 9 out of 10 lethbridge herald forum entries recommend them.
such a shame these masks, given all the money people spend on orthodontic work…all those socially conditioned mouths of chicklets now all too rarely on display. on the other hand, the masks are almost perfect when it comes to preventing halitosis from knocking another dead.
Yep, the more you post the more evident it is that JimO was right… you are a moron. I won’t waste my time untangling your convoluted errant “logic” surrounding the science and theory because you’ll only ignore it. I will simply restate what anybody with more than 2 brain cells observed… death tolls in jurisdictions that either did not mandate masks or did not enforce mandates were much higher, India and Brazil for example, as predicted by experts/scientists. The fact that you didn’t die or get sick is statistically irrelevant. The fact that masks didn’t stop transmission and infection in every case is irrelevant because no expert ever claimed masks would do that. Similar argument holds true for vaccine mandates whether you want to believe it or not.
I’m with you biff. Wearing a mask makes me look stupid. Besides, I know more than the sceintists, just like you do.
well, it could be just when you wear the mask. 🙂 as i noted, i wear masks as directed, nose and mouth fully covered, and not just some piece of cloth, either, but the best that costco has on offer. i am just not as certain as you and jim o and others that they are very effective, and that there is more benefit than fallout from breathing through them for 40 hours a week.
So what is your level of expertise other than the internet. Having worked in a science world for 34 years with bio and chemical agents and pathogens where use of masks is an everyday task I would say your knowledge is limited to non existent at best. Masks offer various levels of protection dependant on how and when used. Masks are to be used for short durations and changed often and not 40 hrs. Have conducted studies of various types and fitness trials and know the effectiveness and limitations based on location, amount of contamination etc etc where as your evaluation is? Proper prevention is not just mask use but eye wear as well as many pathogens/ virruses enter not just through airways. As so said masks are not 100 % and only a close fit fully enclosed mask or repirators with canister or filter, or a selfcontained breathing device with air supply would you achieve 100%.
So making straw man coments is moronic.
You may enjoy taking sick time but there are many who do not as it is often without pay and limited at best with the cost of medical coverage on top of no wages. For you it is a joke for others it is not.
Not just wearing a mask makes you look stupid but you comment as well.
Looking and talking stupid is their version of virtue signaling. They do it to flirt with each other and connect and bond with other morons. I guess online dating just doesn’t work for them.
opie was being sarcastic – he is entirely onside with you.
im not really sure what sarcasm is, i was being 120% serious. wareing a mask makes my look stupid cause nothing ive seen on the internet or the youtube has convinsed me they work. im with you. i dont care what all those university edukated and researcher types say, i know what i feel and thats all i have to say about that!!!!
jim o and herbert, you are a special pair indeed. so full of invective, anger and hate. and so full of yourselves, each. bad enough to be so woefully conditioned as you each are, but to resort to insults because i question the effectiveness of masks – i have noted clearly that i wear them, the “right” kind and the right way. but, to even question gets a volley of insults from you folk. jim o and his ilk so smug and all knowing they come up with names for those with differing perspectives – because you are so self assured and full of yourselves. incredible!
i am sure you appreciate the science behind ddt, agent orange, plastics that are now the scourge of planet earth ( i know, jim o, i use plastics, which makes me a hypocrite which somehow seems to suggest to you that plastics are then great), the myriad of pharm drugs that have caused much harm to people, let alone the pain and death put upon the sentient creatures that were abused in order for pharm to create their stuff so as to reap a big buck….let us not forget, as well, the science that was behind laws that criminalised homosexual relations until 1969, which rendered homosexuality an illness, deviancy and the like. how about the science that said cannabis is a gateway drug…haha! imagine, a person could get behind a law that criminalises a drug because, purportedly, it is so weak that a person will need something stronger! bloody laughable! not saying science is bad, just saying it is far from infallible and not at all beyond reproach. but jim o and herbert know all truths – the oracles of planet earth. what blessings you are each.
Ah biff. The master of strawman arguments. Once again ducking the question on your background knowledge other than the internet and conspiracy right wing policy. Now you dredge up things like agent orange and plastic to make a weak strawman counter. Pathetic and obtuse so classic strawman approach. LOL your like the biff in Back to the future.
first, just a reminder that “your” denotes possession, and “you’re” ( you are) is the contraction you meant to use in a couple of your entries. this of course does not undermine your position.
what does undermine your position are your positions: that sentient creatures can and should be tortured in order to make stuff; that govt/third party has ultimate say over one’s body, such that one has the “freedom” to choose to acquiesce, but, if not, one receives govt sanctioned consequences. hmm, ya ever read any real good philosophy and science fiction stuffs, you know, the likes of nineteen eighty-four or, the shock doctrine?
now, i get as a society we come to some common ground when it comes to protecting the rights of each, to bring about some measure of safety, cooperation, and even predictability. but freedom means one has the ultimate right to their body, and one’s rights do not extend so as to infringe on the right of each to choose for their body. sadly, the burgeoning autocracy that underscores globalism is alive and well, as witnessed by your outlook and that of the very many others that have been so keen to trade away rights in the hope of security.
as for your continuing to provide weak and evasive retorts, you accept an entry by herbert that references poverty riddled, backwater health care nations, each coupled with ultra high density city populations (india and brazil) as gold standard comparatives to places like canada to underscore the effectiveness of masking. you also dismiss my many examples – just tidbits of the very many available – that merely show science is not infallible. that is not to say the scientific method is poor, but just to caution that everything termed “science” is not thus perfect or correct.
again, my position is that masks may not be of much help when it comes to the spread of the likes of covid and flu. china and japan already were masking well ahead of covid…were they spared much more than the usa and canada that were not masking well in advance? have they had notably fewer per capita instances of flu relative to us and the usa prior to covid?
i am ok with a reasonable safety-first apporach, but i am not at all ok with being told i have to take a vax or else, and nor am i ok with being told one is an idiot for questioning information and policy. in supporting the idea of shutting down discussion and discovery (and open discussion and discovery are indeed the foundation of each of science and freedom), what you and the far too many are standing for is controlism, autocracy, and totalitarianism.