With Governor Tim Walz’s announcement, Minnesota becomes the 29th state in the U.S. to have a statewide mask mandate.
Minnesota also joins various retailers like Walmart, Sam’s Club, CVS, Walgreens, Lowe's, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Kohl's, along with hotels and airlines in requiring masks.
"If you insist upon not wearing the mask we are going to insist on you not traveling on Delta in the future," said Ed Bastion, CEO of Delta Airlines.
Most state mask mandates are similar, but some states have different exceptions.
For instance, the Texas mandate only applies to counties with at least 20 active cases of COVID-19. Also exempt statewide, children 10 and under, religious services, working out and voting.
In Kentucky, the cutoff age for masks is five, Louisiana, eight years old and Oregon, 12 years old.
The big question here, do mandates actually play a role in lower the spread of SARS-CoV-2?
Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm highlighted some statistics at a press conference Wednesday.
“Forbes just published an analysis comparing 21 states that had a form of mandatory mask policy with those that did not,” said Malcolm. “The average increase of new COVID cases over the previous 14 days in those states with a mandatory mask policy was 16%. In states without a mask mandate, the average rise in cases was 79%.”
According to a new epidemiological study from the University of North Texas, researchers there are confident that mask mandates do work.
"The bottom line is that the states that had put that mandate in place earlier were able to contain the spread of the virus in June," said Rajesh Nandy, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at the University of North Texas.
The study showed 11 of the 14 states that had a mask mandate back in May saw a decrease in average daily new cases in June and early July. The other three had marginal increases, according to the study.
And almost all the remaining states without mask mandates saw increases in average daily new cases.