During the COVID-19 pandemic’s early days, it wasn’t crystal clear how well face masks were preventing coronavirus infections or severe disease among wearers. Now, a new study reveals an association between mask policies and reduced COVID-19 deaths long before vaccines were added to the picture.
Research on 44 countries in Asia and Europe including nearly one billion people shows nations that enacted face mask policies at the start of the pandemic had significantly lower COVID-19 deaths per million people than those that did not enforce any mask rules.
Mask policies in the U.S. and Canada were not included in the study because such actions were made at the state or province level, not at a national one, researchers said in their study published last month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Countries involved in the study included Greece, Germany, Korea, Italy, the U.K., Sweden and Hong Kong, among others.
