On Mask Mandates

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:

Editor:

You rightly praise Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle for striking down the CDC’s mask mandate – a ruling that is indeed properly grounded in legal, and not policy, considerations (“America’s Unmasked Singers,” April 20). But as it happens, Judge Mizelle’s ruling is consistent also with the science. On the very day that Judge Mizelle ruled, the eminent science journalist John Tierney published in City Journal an in-depth survey of much of the research on mask wearing. This research does not support those who insist that mask mandates are effective at reducing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As Tierney concludes, “[c]overing up may give the maskaholics a false sense of security – but they could breathe more easily if they’d just face the facts.”*

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

* John Tierney, “Maskaholics,” City Journal, April 18, 2022.