ArticleOsong public health and research perspectives2023
Association between face covering policies and the incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 in European countries.
Article in Osong public health and research perspectives, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions in containing COVID-19 pandemic after the roll-out of coronavirus vaccines: a systematic review.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Toward resilience for public health emergency response system during COVID-19: qualitative comparative analyses of 40 countries.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis study was conducted to determine the impact of the strengthening or relaxation of face covering mandates on the subsequent national case incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Europe as the full vaccination rate was increasing.
methodsEuropean countries in which case incidence increased for 3 consecutive weeks were monitored and analyzed using COVID-19 incidence data shared by the World Health Organization (WHO). The epidemic trend of COVID-19 in Europe was compared with that of countries elsewhere in the world based on WHO weekly epidemiological reports from June 20 to October 30, 2021. In addition, this study provided insight into the impact of government mask mandates on COVID-19 incidence in Europe by measuring the index scores of those facial covering policies before and after mandate relaxation or strengthening. The effects of the vaccination rate and the speed of vaccination on COVID-19 incidence were also analyzed.
resultsThe incidence of COVID-19 after the relaxation of face covering mandates was significantly higher than before relaxation. However, no significant difference was observed in vaccination rate between countries with increased and decreased incidence. Instead, rapid vaccination delayed the resurgence in incidence.
conclusionsThe findings suggest that face covering policies in conjunction with rapid vaccination efforts are essential to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.