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Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe

Masking was the single most common non-pharmaceutical intervention in the course of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Most countries have implemented recommendations or mandates regarding the use of masks in public spaces. The aim of this short study was to analyse the correlation be...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Spira, Beny
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9123350/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35607577
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.24268
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author Spira, Beny
author_facet Spira, Beny
author_sort Spira, Beny
collection PubMed
description Masking was the single most common non-pharmaceutical intervention in the course of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Most countries have implemented recommendations or mandates regarding the use of masks in public spaces. The aim of this short study was to analyse the correlation between mask usage against morbidity and mortality rates in the 2020-2021 winter in Europe. Data from 35 European countries on morbidity, mortality, and mask usage during a six-month period were analysed and crossed. Mask usage was more homogeneous in Eastern Europe than in Western European countries. Spearman's correlation coefficients between mask usage and COVID-19 outcomes were either null or positive, depending on the subgroup of countries and type of outcome (cases or deaths). Positive correlations were stronger in Western than in Eastern European countries. These findings indicate that countries with high levels of mask compliance did not perform better than those with low mask usage.
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spelling pubmed-91233502022-05-22 Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe Spira, Beny Cureus Infectious Disease Masking was the single most common non-pharmaceutical intervention in the course of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Most countries have implemented recommendations or mandates regarding the use of masks in public spaces. The aim of this short study was to analyse the correlation between mask usage against morbidity and mortality rates in the 2020-2021 winter in Europe. Data from 35 European countries on morbidity, mortality, and mask usage during a six-month period were analysed and crossed. Mask usage was more homogeneous in Eastern Europe than in Western European countries. Spearman's correlation coefficients between mask usage and COVID-19 outcomes were either null or positive, depending on the subgroup of countries and type of outcome (cases or deaths). Positive correlations were stronger in Western than in Eastern European countries. These findings indicate that countries with high levels of mask compliance did not perform better than those with low mask usage. Cureus 2022-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC9123350/ /pubmed/35607577 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.24268 Text en Copyright © 2022, Spira et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Infectious Disease
Spira, Beny
Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe
title Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe
title_full Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe
title_fullStr Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe
title_full_unstemmed Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe
title_short Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe
title_sort correlation between mask compliance and covid-19 outcomes in europe
topic Infectious Disease
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9123350/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35607577
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.24268
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