Face mask wearing rate predicts COVID-19 death rates across countries

Abstract

AbstractIdentifying biomedical and socioeconomic predictors of the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 can help the development of effective interventions. In this study, we used the hypothesis-driven regression approach to test the hypothesis that the mask wearing rate, along with age and obesity, can largely predict the cumulative number of deaths across countries. Our regression models explained 69% of the variation in the cumulative number of deaths per million (March to June 2020) among 22 countries, identifying the face mask wearing rate in March as an important predictor. The number of deaths per million predicted by our elastic net regression model showed high correlation (r = 0.86) with observed numbers. These findings emphasize the importance of face masks in preventing the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19.One Sentence SummaryFace mask wearing rate in March is a strong predictor of the cumulative number of deaths per million caused by COVID-19 among 22 countries.