Oreos and the CDC’s new masking guidelines
Pandemic Minute: Need a mask for that milk mustache?
From the start, masking has been a bit of a mess in the U.S. However, the CDC’s latest revision of masking recommendations for medical facilities shows hopeful signs we’re improving. Not because of any specific recommendation, but because of Oreos, of course!
Oreos, beloved sandwich cookie since 1912, are great, aren’t they? That first Oreo in the pack always tastes the best. Going from zero Oreos to one is what we call a marginal increase in Oreos. A small increase. Economic policies are evaluated similarly, by the marginal changes they affect.
Ok, back to cookies. One Oreo is pretty great. Two Oreos are good too. How about three? Four? At some point, maybe around 6, I’m starting to max out on my Oreo enjoyment. Each new cookie just isn’t bringing me the same marginal enjoyment as the last. Your limit might be fewer or more (my 6-year old just confidently told me it would be 50 for her!), but it is probably true that your enjoyment of the last cookie is less than the first.
A misstep in early pandemic policy was not acknowledging important differences in marginal benefits. Masking and distancing guidelines were recommended as if the marginal benefits they created were equal across a wide range of settings. New York City, with high population density and crowded public transportation was maybe on its first Oreo, but rural Montana, with miles between people and nearly exclusive use of personal vehicles, was much closer to its last Oreo. The costs, however, were the same for each location. As a result of ignoring this mismatch, these 6th-Oreo areas often witnessed protests and eroding trust in any CDC recommendation.
The latest CDC masking recommendations are a departure from this, however. The new medical facility guidelines link optional masking to pre-set tiers of transmission rates, part of a new system called COVID-19 Community Levels which adapt recommendations to levels of COVID prevalence. While approximately 70 percent of the US medical system remains in a tier of recommended masking, it opens up more choices for outlier areas to better respond given their lower rates of COVID transmission. Better aligning benefits and costs of policies will help restore trust when we need it most.