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.