Coronavirus cases surging in states where face masks aren’t required, analysis shows

An analysis by the Philadelphia Inquirer shows states that don’t require residents to wear face masks are seeing a major spike in new coronavirus cases.

The report by the Pennsylvania newspaper came Wednesday, the same day United States public health officials reported 36,880 new confirmed cases — the most in a single day since the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to the New York Times.

In the 16 states where wearing face masks in public is not mandatory, “new coronavirus cases have risen by 84% over the last two weeks,” the Inquirer reported.

Those states include Texas, which broke a record it set the previous day with 5,551 new cases reported Wednesday, according to KHOU. Oklahoma, which also does not require face masks, also had a record one-day increase Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

Florida, a state that only requires employees of some businesses to wear face masks, also set a new record high Wednesday with 5,508 new cases, the Miami Herald reported. States that have similar policies as Florida have had a 70% increase in new cases over the last two weeks, according to the Inquirer’s analysis.

Eleven states are requiring residents to wear face masks, and these states — many in the Northeast — have seen a 25% decrease in new cases in a two-week span, the Inquirer reported.

New York, among the states where residents must wear face coverings, had just 581 new cases Wednesday, down from the highs of more than 10,000 new cases back in April, according to its health department.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a mandate June 18 requiring face masks to be worn in public. But the state shattered a record Wednesday with more than 7,100 new confirmed cases, according to the Sacramento Bee. Coronavirus symptoms can often take a week or more to appear, thus testing numbers are delayed from when infections occur.

There are 2.38 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States and nearly 122,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, reinforced the need for face masks in a recent interview with The Street.

“Masks are not 100% protective. However, they certainly are better than not wearing a mask,” he said. “Both to prevent you, if you happen to be a person who may feel well, but has an asymptomatic infection that you don’t even know about, to prevent you from infecting someone else. But also, it can protect you to a certain degree, not 100%, in protecting you from getting infected from someone who either is breathing, or coughing, or sneezing, or singing or whatever it is in which the droplets or the aerosols to out.”

This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 7:18 AM with the headline "Coronavirus cases surging in states where face masks aren’t required, analysis shows."