Thread by @chrisvanderveen

THREAD on mask use

Yes... I know...

But...

Let's take a look at Adams County. Remember Adams. It's moving to Safer Level 3 today because of, in part, high incidence rates.

Adams is clearly having a problem with cases. More so than Arapahoe (red) and Douglas (blue)

This comes from TriCounty Health

I think the simplistic thought might be...

well... maybe they're not wearing masks enough...

BUT... fortunately for the purposes of this thread, TriCounty has spent weeks analyzing mask use by trying to count, observationally, mask use.

This is going to get a bit messy.

See?

But look at the chart again... Adams County (top bar chart... orange bars) has been in the 89-93% mask use range since mid August.

And, according to chart, doing about as well as Arapahoe and Douglas

Now let's go back to case counts.

Case counts in Adams really started to rise in mid September.

See chart below

If masks were a panacea... this wouldn't be happening right? Adams has 90% observational mask use rate

IMPORTANT NOTE:

I'm NOT saying it's time to chuck masks. It's not. I think there are plenty of studies that show masks can work to slow the spread

BUT

Much like the virus itself, this is a complex issue. And I worry an over reliance on mask use (and mask shaming) hurts a bit.

And I also now believe this,

Something else is going on here, folks.

Seasonality? Indoor gatherings? Younger patient populations and spread?

I don't know. I ain't the scientist here.

But something else is going on.

It's likely a combination of many factors.

But let's stop assuming masks alone are gonna save us.

They're clearly not working as well as we might like right now.

Which leads me to my final point.

Simplistic solutions to complex problems almost always fail to achieve desired results.

Bottom line...

Stay safe. Stay sane (as much as possible)

and look within the data for clues as to what might be taking place.

And let's fight this damn thing... with the best information available.