Figure 5
The scatter plot shows the relationship between mask wearing rate on September 30 and the number of COVID-19 cases in September 2020 for U S states, grouped by 2020 presidential election outcomes. The horizontal axis is labeled “Mask Wearing Rate on September 30” and ranges from 35 percent to 80 percent in increments of 5 percent. The vertical axis is labeled “Number of COVID-19 Cases in September 2020” and ranges from 0 to 15000 in increments of 5000. A legend identifies three point types: blue right-facing triangles labeled “Democrats”, green diamonds labeled “Close race”, and red left-facing triangles labeled “Republicans”. State abbreviations appear beside each point. A large red ellipse encloses red points along with the red text “States where Republicans won over Democrats in the 2020 presidential election with a vote margin of more than 5 percentage points” at 40 to 70 percent with red arrows pointing to the region. A blue ellipse encloses blue points along with blue text “States where Democrats won with a vote margin of more than 5 percentage points” at 60 to 80 percent with blue arrows indicating the region. States within the two ellipses include visible labels such as “WY”, “SD”, “ND”, “OK”, “TN”, “KY”, “WV”, “MS”, and others in the red group, and “VT”, “ME”, “PA”, “NJ”, “MA”, “RI”, “MD”, “CT”, and others in the blue group. Note: All numerical values are approximated.Number of COVID-19 cases in September 2020 versus mask-wearing rate stratified by winning party of 2020 U.S. presidential election. Source: Compiled by the author from IHME (2022) and CDC (2023)