This article is published in The Epoch Times on December 22, 2020 and updated on December 23, 2020

Protective-mask mandates aimed at combating the spread of the CCP virus that causes the disease COVID-19 appear to promote its spread, according to a report from RationalGround.com, a clearinghouse of COVID-19 data trends that’s run by a grassroots group of data analysts, computer scientists, and actuaries.

Researchers examined cases covering a 229-day period running from May 1 through Dec. 15 and compared the days in which state governments had imposed mask mandates and the days when they hadn’t.

In states with a mandate in effect, there were 9,605,256 confirmed COVID-19 cases, which works out to an average of 27 cases per 100,000 people per day. When states didn’t have a statewide order—including states that never had mandates, coupled with the period of time masking states didn’t have the mandate in place—there were 5,781,716 cases, averaging 17 cases per 100,000 people per day.

In other words, protective-mask mandates have a poor track record so far in fighting the coronavirus. States with mandates in place produced an average of 10 more reported infections per 100,000 people per day than states without mandates.

“The reverse correlation between periods of masking and non-masking is remarkable,” RationalGround.com co-founder Justin Hart tweeted on Dec. 20.

The 15 states that went without a statewide mask mandate for the duration of the analysis were Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming, Daniel Horowitz notes in an explainer at Conservative Review.

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