Arguments against mask requirements during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020-2021

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This page captures the main arguments that have been advanced against mask requirements during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. These arguments come from a variety of sources, including public officials, journalists, think tanks, economists, scientists, and other stakeholders. We encourage you to share the debates happening in your local community to editor@ballotpedia.org.

There are six main types of arguments against mask requirements:

* Mask requirements are not necessary to stop the spread of coronavirus
* Mask requirements give a false sense of security
* Mask requirements restrict freedom
* Masks present other health risks
* Mask requirements have harmful social consequences
* Mask requirements are unenforceable

Click here to read about arguments in favor of mask requirements.

## Contents

* 1 Mask requirements are not necessary to stop the spread of coronavirus
* 1.1 Claim: There is insufficient data to support that mask requirements effectively prevent the spread of coronavirus
* 1.2 Claim: The curve has been successfully flattened in areas without mask requirements
* 1.3 Claim: Mask requirements risk deemphasizing other necessary public health measures
* 2 Mask requirements give a false sense of security
* 2.1 Claim: Mask requirements disincentivize vaccinations
* 2.2 Claim: Mask-wearing mandates encourage people to pursue risky behaviors and activities that could spread COVID-19
* 3 Mask requirements restrict freedom
* 3.1 Claim: Mask requirements are an overreach of government power and are unconstitutional
* 3.2 Claim: Mask requirements are a slippery slope and will lead to more government mandates, bureaucracy, and regulations
* 4 Masks present other health risks
* 4.1 Claim: Wearing masks can cause other health risks
* 5 Mask requirements have harmful social consequences
* 5.1 Claim: Wearing of masks can generate racist reactions
* 5.2 Claim: Mask wearing inhibits communication and children's social development
* 5.3 Claim: Mask mandates are immoral laws by government-imposed to control human behavior and personal development
* 6 Mask requirements are unenforceable
* 6.1 Claim: Local mask laws with unclear enforcement mechanisms are ineffective, counter-productive, and potentially dangerous for employees
* 6.2 Claim: Mask mandates for businesses require employees to enforce laws
* 6.3 Claim: Colleges and universities should not ask students to report violations of Covid-19 rules
* 7 See also
* 8 Footnotes

## Mask requirements are not necessary to stop the spread of coronavirus[edit]

### Claim: There is insufficient data to support that mask requirements effectively prevent the spread of coronavirus[edit]

* Ashton Forbes, a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging San Diego County's mask requirements (The San Diego Union Tribune): Ashton Forbes is the plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging San Diego County's mask requirements.

"With new evidence and data coming to light regarding the science and severity of this specific virus, it has become ever more prevalent the requirement to wear a facial covering is not effective in stopping the spread of COVID-19. As such, the requirement to wear a face mask is overbroad and violates fundamental rights of both the United States Constitution as well as the California Constitution." - "San Diego resident sues county over mask orders," June 2, 2020.

* Joseph A. Ladapo (Wall Street Journal): "While mask-wearing has often been invoked in explanations for rising or falling Covid-19 case counts, the reality is that these trends reflect a basic human need to interact with one another. Claims that low mask compliance is responsible for rising case counts are also not supported by Gallup data, which show that the percentage of Americans reporting wearing masks has been high and relatively stable since June. Health officials and political leaders have assigned mask mandates a gravity unsupported by empirical research." - "Masks Are a Distraction From the Pandemic Reality," October 28, 2020.

* Phillip W. Magness (Wall Street Journal): "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." - "Case for Mask Mandate Rests on Bad Data," November 11, 2020.

### Claim: The curve has been successfully flattened in areas without mask requirements[edit]

* Andrew Cooper, the plaintiff in a lawsuit in Nashua, New Hampshire (New Hampshire Union Leader): Andrew Cooper filed a lawsuit against a mask requirement ordinance of Nashua, New Hampshire.

"The ordinance’s justification that ‘slowing the spread’ of the coronavirus is somehow still a societal objective also ignores the fact that the entire state of New Hampshire has been wildly successful at ‘flattening the curve’ since it never came close to reaching the capacity of its health care system." - "Nashua resident files lawsuit over city's mask mandate," June 1, 2020.

* Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) (The Dallas Morning News): "After opening things 100%, effective March the 10th, with no masks, the numbers have just continued to drop." - "Abbott says Biden ’100% wrong’ on mask mandate and owes apology for ‘Neanderthal’ gibe. Who’s right?," June 2, 2021.

### Claim: Mask requirements risk deemphasizing other necessary public health measures[edit]

* Group of doctors (Reason): A group of scientists and doctors sent a letter to the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences criticizing a study regarding the effectiveness of masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus and saying that the study's conclusions that "airborne transmission represents the only viable route for spreading the disease" and the ineffectiveness of social distancing, quarantine, and handwashing recommendations was misleading and harmful.

"While masks are almost certainly an effective public health measure for preventing and slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the claims presented in this study are dangerously misleading and lack any basis in evidence." - "Prominent Researchers Say a Widely Cited Study on Wearing Masks Is Badly Flawed," June 22, 2020.

## Mask requirements give a false sense of security[edit]

### Claim: Mask requirements disincentivize vaccinations[edit]

* Marc Siegel (The Wall Street Journal): "A more effective strategy would be to relieve the public of ineffective draconian restrictions. The president should announce that all federal mask mandates will end effective May 28, in time for Memorial Day weekend, and he should encourage states, localities and private institutions to do the same. This would send a clear message to the vaccine-resistant: It’s your responsibility to protect yourself by getting your shots. The message to everyone: Vaccines work, and it’s time to get back to normal." - "End Mask Mandates to Spur Vaccination," May 6, 2021.

### Claim: Mask-wearing mandates encourage people to pursue risky behaviors and activities that could spread COVID-19[edit]

* Allysia Finley (The Wall Street Journal): "The decision to wear a mask would seem to be cost-free, apart from minor discomfort. But absolutism about masks and disregard for scientific uncertainties may promote a false sense of security that encourages risky behavior—including massive political protests." - "The Hidden Danger of Masks," August 4, 2020.

## Mask requirements restrict freedom[edit]

### Claim: Mask requirements are an overreach of government power and are unconstitutional[edit]

* Philip Mauriello, Jr., an attorney representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging San Diego County's mask requirements (The San Diego Union Tribune): Philip Mauriello, Jr., is an attorney representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging San Diego County's mask requirements.

"The requirement of Plaintiff to wear a facial covering in public when not in his residence restricts his right to travel within the County by forcing him to make a decision between wearing a facial covering which provides no medical benefit and in fact creates other collateral health risks, or remain a prisoner in his own home. Either choice violates essential constitutional rights of the Plaintiff." - "San Diego resident sues county over mask orders," June 2, 2020.

* Brantley Lyons, Montgomery City Councilmember (AP): "I think to make somebody do something or require somebody to wear something is an overreach." - "US virus outbreaks stir clash over masks, personal freedom," June 18, 2020.

### Claim: Mask requirements are a slippery slope and will lead to more government mandates, bureaucracy, and regulations[edit]

* Molly McCann, Of Counsel with Sidney Powell, P.C. (The Federalist): "To take our freedom from us, people with anti-American agendas have to mobilize some initial quorum of consent from the population. Mandatory masking seeks to build that consent. In addition to extending the fiction that we are in an emergency sufficient to trigger the extra-constitutional authority of local and state executives, mandatory masking acts as a peer pressure-fueled signal that encourages conformity to our coming 'new normal." - "Mandatory Masks Aren't About Safety, They're About Social Control," May 27, 2020.

## Masks present other health risks[edit]

### Claim: Wearing masks can cause other health risks[edit]

* Antonio I Lazzarino, medical doctor and epidemiologist (The BMJ): A letter to the editor of BMJ stated several side effects of wearing a mask.

"(4) Wearing a face mask makes the exhaled air go into the eyes. This generates an uncomfortable feeling and an impulse to touch your eyes. If your hands are contaminated, you are infecting yourself. (5) Face masks make breathing more difficult. For people with COPD, face masks are in fact intolerable to wear as they worsen their breathlessness.[5] Moreover, a fraction of carbon dioxide previously exhaled is inhaled at each respiratory cycle. Those two phenomena increase breathing frequency and deepness, and hence they increase the amount of inhaled and exhaled air. This may worsen the burden of covid-19 if infected people wearing masks spread more contaminated air. This may also worsen the clinical condition of infected people if the enhanced breathing pushes the viral load down into their lungs." - "Covid-19: important potential side effects of wearing face masks that we should bear in mind," April 20, 2020.

## Mask requirements have harmful social consequences[edit]

### Claim: Wearing of masks can generate racist reactions[edit]

* Trevon Logan, an economics professor at Ohio State University (CNN): "This (wearing a homemade mask) seems like a reasonable response unless you just sort of take American society out of it. When you can't do that, you're basically telling people to look dangerous given racial stereotypes that are out there. This is in the larger context of black men fitting the description of a suspect who has a hood on, who has a face covering on. It looks like almost every criminal sketch of any garden-variety black suspect." - "Why some people of color say they won't wear homemade masks," April 7, 2020.

* Steven Horwitz and Donald J. Boudreaux (Detroit News): "In the same way that empowering politicians to solve pollution does not automatically produce the black-and-white results on the economist’s chalkboard, mask mandates might also have unintended negative consequences. By creating more opportunities for encounters between law enforcement and the citizenry, mask mandates create yet one more way for authorities to harass the relatively powerless. We’ve already seen that mandates are disproportionately enforced against people and communities of color." - ""Economics show why politicians' mask mandates don't work"," August 26, 2020.

### Claim: Mask wearing inhibits communication and children's social development[edit]

* Yinon Weiss (The Federalist): "Masks dehumanize us, and ironically serve as a constant reminder that we should be afraid. People can now be spotted wearing masks while camping by themselves in the woods or on a solo sailing trip. They have become a cruel device on young children everywhere, kindergarten students covered by masks and isolated by Plexiglas, struggling to understand the social expressions of their peers. Face coverings are causing real harm to the American psyche, provide little to no medical benefit, and distract us from more important health policy issues." - "These 12 Graphs Show Mask Mandates Do Nothing To Stop COVID," October 29, 2020.

### Additional reading

* "How face masks affect our communication" - BBC, June 8, 2020

### Claim: Mask mandates are immoral laws by government-imposed to control human behavior and personal development[edit]

* David Shane (The Federalist): "Accepting invasive rules that affect personal behavior in a low-risk environment conditions people to accept that kind of intrusion into their lives. This is one reason people are particularly against masking their children, who are especially prone to manipulation. If we do this, what kind of human are we helping to produce?" - ""The Moral Case Against Mask Mandates and Other COVID Restrictions"," July 31, 2020.

## Mask requirements are unenforceable[edit]

### Claim: Local mask laws with unclear enforcement mechanisms are ineffective, counter-productive, and potentially dangerous for employees[edit]

* Manchester NH Alderman At-Large, Joe Kelly Lavasseur (New Hampshire Union Leader): "Honestly, this is the most unenforceable ordinance...It’s just amazing to me how many ordinances are being violated in this city on a daily basis that no one is being cited for them. We’re going to put something forward that has absolutely no teeth whatsoever." - "Some aldermen claim Manchester mask ordinance 'unenforceable'," September 2, 2020.

* Kyle Wingfield, opinion (The Brunswick News): "Not to get too paternalistic about government, but anyone who’s a parent, or a teacher, or who otherwise supervises children, learns this lesson very quickly: Only make rules you’re willing and able to enforce, or your ability to enforce any rules will weaken." - "How enforceable are local mask mandates?," July 13, 2020.

### Claim: Mask mandates for businesses require employees to enforce laws[edit]

* The Wilson Times Editorial Board (The Wilson Times): "[NC Gov. Roy] Cooper deserves credit for taking criminal penalties off the table, but he’s wrong to order clerks and salespeople to do the state’s dirty work. He’s conferred responsibility without authority on thousands of people and made them the unwitting face of a controversial new policy." - "Our Opinion: Mask mandate drafts cashiers, clerks as Cooper's cops," June 25, 2020.

### Claim: Colleges and universities should not ask students to report violations of Covid-19 rules[edit]

* Karen Levy and Lauren Kilgour, Cornell University (The New York Times): "Fighting the coronavirus is, to be sure, an all-hands-on-deck problem, but pitting students against one another in a high-stress time carries real risks, and colleges should be exceedingly careful about casting their students in the role of undercover coronavirus cops. Deputizing students to police their peers threatens to disrupt the interpersonal dynamics of student life, while also creating conditions to displace blame onto students should outbreaks occur. Universities need to be mindful of how peer surveillance systems might be misused, how they might burden different groups of students and the damage they may do to community trust." - ""Don’t Make College Kids the Coronavirus Police"," August 12, 2020.

## See also[edit]

* Arguments in favor of mask requirements during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020-2021
* Taxonomy of arguments about mask requirements during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020
* Documenting America's Path to Recovery

## Footnotes[edit]

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Political responses to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020-2021

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