UPDATE Wednesday, July, 1, 11 A.M. (EDT)
During a June 30 press conference, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence urged Americans to wear face masks/face coverings. This was not a federal requirement, but Pence said wearing masks will help slow the spread of the virus. Pence wore a mask to the public briefing. "When you do not wear your face covering, we end up in a situation where you see higher rates of disease spread and you end up having to close places," said Surgeon General Jerome Adams at the briefing. "This mask, this face covering, actually is an instrument of freedom for Americans if we all use it.”

Wearing a mask in public could help limit economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new study from Goldman Sachs.

The New York City-headquartered multinational investment bank and financial services company released results from a study that showed that a federal mask mandate would reduce the daily growth of COVID-19 in the U.S. That could help prevent additional strict societal lockdown measures that would, if implemented, slash 5% from the nation’s gross domestic product.

“We find that face masks are associated with significantly better coronavirus outcomes,” Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs’ chief economist, wrote in a note to clients. “Our baseline estimate is that a national mandate could raise the percentage of people who wear masks by 15 (percentage points) and cut the daily growth rate of confirmed cases by 1.0 (percentage point) to 0.6%.”

Hatzius continued: “These calculations imply that a face mask mandate could potentially substitute for lockdowns that would otherwise subtract nearly 5% from GDP.”

In the United States, the wearing of a mask has become politicized. Even so, data shows that coronavirus cases have been rising at an alarming rate in states with relaxed face mask policies.

For the study, Goldman Sachs evaluated how mask wearing in different states could, if to any degree, scale back COVID-19 infection rates. That included looking at results that showed that states like Arizona, where coronavirus cases are soaring, only 40% of people say they “always” wear a mask in public, compared to 80% in Massachusetts.

Hopefully this isn't a case of "here we go again," but new #COVID19 cases are skyrocketing & that has the tentative recovery that was starting for the #promoproducts industry on edge: https://t.co/lXWc67oew4 @asicentral @ASI_MBell @Tim_Andrews_ASI @TheresaHegel

— Chris Ruvo (@ChrisR_ASI) June 29, 2020

Next, Goldman Sachs investigated how mask mandates in 20 states and Washington, D.C. translated into people actually wearing masks in public. YouGov COVID-19 respondent data was used in that analysis.

The upshot was that mask mandates increase the percentage of people who say they “frequently” or “always” don a mask by about 25 percentage points in the 30 days after the governmental entity has issued the mandate. The rate of people who then report they “always” wear a mask goes up 40 percentage points, indicating that the mandate compelled “frequent” wearers to always put on the coverings.

Taking that data into account, Goldman calculated that a national mandate would boost, by 15 percentage points, the amount of Americans who wear masks, which would reduce the growth rate of new COVID-19 cases by 1 percentage point to 0.6%. Lockdown measures to achieve the same results would cut an estimated 5% from GDP, the analysis found, meaning that simply wearing a mask could keep people and the economy healthier.

“If a face mask mandate meaningfully lowers coronavirus infections, it could be valuable not only from a public health perspective but also from an economic perspective because it could substitute for renewed lockdowns that would otherwise hit GDP,” Hatzius wrote in a note reported by CNBC.

A mask mandate could potentially benefit the promotional products industry. Promo firms have been selling large volumes of blank and branded masks during the pandemic. In recent months, masks/face coverings have been among the most commonly searched products in ESP, ASI’s database of products from across the promo industry. The Washington Post just reported on a phenomenon that Counselor has documented in depth: the growing desire for branded face masks.