Against Mask Mandates

Even if--and it's a big "if"--you could justify mask mandates and lockdowns in the early days, I can't see how it's morally possible now that vaccines are available for the asking.  Let's look at the issue from the standpoint of economics:

The obvious implication is that widespread vaccine take-up massively lowers the value of any health benefits resulting from government-imposed measures, such as mask mandates.

In other words, the “benefits” of mask mandates in highly vaccinated areas such as DC have plunged, while the costs are as high or have potentially increased further (both because the imposition of the mandate reduces the perceived benefit of vaccination, potentially deterring further take-up, and because many businesses have engaged in extensive reopening investments that will now be disrupted). Crucially, as more people become vaccinated, the benefit-cost ratio of these mandates falls and the case for them becomes ever weaker.

The obvious retort to this is that, in other areas of the U.S., vaccine take-up has been much lower overall. In Mississippi, just 44 percent of the adult population are fully vaccinated and cases are surging. Does that make mask mandates there more economically justified?

Let’s leave aside that 77 percent of seniors (over-65s) are fully vaccinated even in Mississippi, again significantly reducing the value of any health benefits of mandates. There’s a second reason in the externality framework that weakens the case for government mask orders today, although it might sit less comfortably with those in the public health world.

As Paul Krugman outlined in his most recent newsletter, the strongest argument for any government measures to mitigate or suppress COVID-19 last year was that vaccines were coming, meaning lives saved now from COVID-19 were potentially deaths averted from it forever. Yet, as stated, vaccines have been freely available now for months for any adult who wants one. In that reality, the “right” re: who should bear the liability for facing the external costs of other’s behavior should arguably shift back to our cold/flu normality.

As the vast majority of the population can access something that mitigates their risk of getting and transmitting COVID-19 much more significantly than a mask, it is surely the case that we should now consider the majority of the external costs as “internalized.” Each individual now is the “lowest cost avoider” of harm. In non-economic speak: if people still want to roam unvaccinated, they should bear the elevated risk, and not expect others to be coerced into making sacrifices to (primarily) keep them safe.

In other words, after setting aside a period of time to allow people to get the vaccines, we should take the non-vaccinated folks’ decision not to be pricked as a willing acceptance to personally front up the infection dangers. Many will self-evidently change their minds if they see delta cases in their area surge. But burdening everyone in a territory with government-enforced mask wearing or even lockdowns again (as Krugman advocates) is unjustifiable when the vast majority of the benefits will go to those actively forgoing the most effective means of alleviating the virus’s effects...

An economic approach to the pandemic made the case for certain government-mandated social distancing and mitigation efforts relatively strong a year ago. With vaccines freely available, those same economic principles bolster the case now for more limited interventions for the most vulnerable groups, while leaving most COVID-19 risk management to individuals. Blanket masking rules that apply to all are now far more difficult to justify on the grounds of “externalities” than before. And the reason for that are the vaccines: our path back to normality.

Agreed.

And on a related note: