“The fate of many lives, not to mention the U.S. and global economy, largely depends on the containment of the novel COVID-19 coronavirus.” Goldman Sachs

• Cloth face coverings may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others.⁽²⁾
• Cloth face coverings are most likely to reduce the spread of COVID-19 when they are widely used by people in public settings.⁽²⁾

According to a recent analysis by U.S. investment bank, Goldman Sachs, there’s one simple thing Americans can do that would boost U.S. GDP and make a huge difference to the economy, American jobs, and overall prosperity.

Goldman Sachs’ analysis, led by its chief economist Jan Hatzius, concluded that “a universal mask-wearing order can improve the U.S. GDP by a huge five percentage points”.  And according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “cloth face coverings are recommended as a simple barrier to help prevent respiratory droplets from traveling into the air and onto other people when the person wearing the cloth face covering coughs, sneezes, talks, or raises their voice”.

Goldman agrees with the emerging scientific evidence that “face masks are associated with significantly better coronavirus outcomes.”  And, based on the growing evidence, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has expanded its mask guidance stating that Americans should wear them in all “public settings and when around people who don’t live in your household, especially when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain”.

Goldman’s analysis concludes “a national face mask order could increase face mask-wearing by 15 percentage points, reducing the transmission growth rate of confirmed cases from 1.6% to 0.6%”. Goldman concludes that “increased face-masking would substitute for local lock downs and social distancing, which caused U.S. GDP to decline 17% between January and April”.

While anecdotal evidence does suggest strongly that universal mask-wearing can greatly benefit the economy and save lives, it has been difficult to convince Americans of this fact.  As a result of not mandating a national face mask-wearing, there has been a resurgence of COVID-19 inflections and hospitalizations in a number of southern and western states in the U.S.

From a medical expert perspective, “if everyone in the U.S. wore a mask, the coronavirus pandemic could be under control within four to eight weeks”, was conveyed by Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield in a discussion led by medical journal JAMA.

In summary, Goldman Sachs’ analysis suggests that the economic benefit from “adopting a national face mask mandate and increased face mask usage” could be sizable, especially when compared with the alternative of a return to broader societal lock downs and increasing COVID-19 infections.

Sources:

1. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/goldman-sachs-says-this-simple-measure-can-save-lives-and-the-economy-2020-07-14
2. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html
3. https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/pages/face-masks-and-gdp.html
4. https://apple.news/ApjIDbf3mR_u11IZp8goONw