Case for Mask Mandate Rests on Bad Data: News: The Independent Institute
Unfortunately, the IHME modelers findings contained an error that even minimal scrutiny should have caught. The projected number of lives saved, and the implied case for a mask mandate, are based on a faulty statistic. Using a months-old survey, IHME modelers assumed erroneously that the U.S. mask-adoption rate stood at only 49% as of late September, and therefore had plenty of room to increase to universal adoption, defined as 95%, or to a more plausible 85%. According to more recent survey findings, however, America s mask-adoption rate has hovered around 80% since the summer.
New numbers would completely alter the IHME study s findings. If 80% of Americans already wear masks, a new mandate could add only a few percentage points to the mask-adoption rate instead of nearly doubling it. Additional gains would be small and certainly nowhere near 130,000 lives saved.
Oops.