As the pressure on mask mandates across the new state increases, experts are divided on whether such requirements will work.

“The number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continues to be an alarming increase that is straining our healthcare system, so doctors at the Massachusetts Medical Society are federal, regardless of vaccination status. We recommend that masks be needed in all public indoor environments within the association, “said Dr. Carol Allen, president of the association, in a statement.

But Governor Charlie Baker resisted those calls, repeating what he had on Monday. There are no plans for a state-wide Maskman date, Note that 5 million residents of Massachusetts have been fully vaccinated, of which 1.5 million have been boosted.

New data from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council show that nearly half of the 101 communities tracked in Greater Boston have some form of indoor masking rules. At least 22 including Boston require masks for all indoor public spaces, and another 24 are obliged to at least city buildings.

Some infectious disease experts say that duty alone may not be enough to convince people who are tired of the pandemic to wear a face cover again. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School and Chief Innovation Officer at Children’s Hospital in Boston, concludes: Research As announced earlier this year, communities reported to have high mask wear rates and physical distances were able to more effectively control virus infections, but by government order, masks. It seems that the number of people who wear it has not increased.

“Mandate itself is not always the most effective,” says Brownstein. “What we found is, generally speaking, that. [mask wearing] Raises when there is a threat other than government orders. “

He said the surge in post-Thanksgiving cases and increasing hospitalizations, coupled with so many unknowns about the rapidly expanding variants of Omicron, are likely to convince people to replace their masks. Stated.

And that Latest data from Carnegie Mellon University’s COVID-19 trends The impact study seems to agree with the assessment. The percentage of Massachusetts residents who report wearing masks has risen from 61% just before Thanksgiving to 67% earlier this week.

Ali H. Mokudad, a professor of health index science at the Institute for Health Metrics at the University of Washington, said there is no doubt that Mask can “control the spread of this virus.”

The institute found that if 95% of Massachusetts residents wore masks, by March 2022 the COVID-19 mortality rate would not change from 29 per day, which was predicted to remain unchanged. It is expected to decrease to only 3 people per person. It will prevent the deaths of approximately 1,500 people.

On Monday, the state’s Ministry of Public Health reported an average of 17.4 deaths over a seven-day period.

However, Mokudad warned that the IHME model was three weeks old and has not yet considered Omicron. He said the masking effect would be much greater as new varieties that were rapidly becoming widespread were added to the calculations.

Mokudad supports vaccines and vaccine obligations as the front line of defense, but he warns that vaccinated people can play a major role in spreading the virus when going out without masks. doing. Vaccinated people have little risk of becoming seriously ill, but they can still get infected and unknowingly spread the virus to vulnerable and unvaccinated people.

“Mask mandate works,” Mokudad said.

However, Joseph Allen, director of the Harvard TH Chan Public Health School’s Healthy Building Program, said Maskmandate is not the most useful tool at this time.

Allen said at an online press conference on Tuesday that masks “have little additional benefit” for those who are fully vaccinated and boosted. And those who benefit most from wearing a mask, that is, those who have not been vaccinated, are least likely to wear a mask.

Allen said public health officials should have eased the mask message during the spring and summer of last year when the public knew that the disease was less contagious. Now, “fatigue has begun.”

“Because we couldn’t roll back at the right time, we were able to remove the ability of this tool from our weapon and put it back in place at the right time,” he said. “People are very dissatisfied with the message. The public health message remained code red, even though they knew that the risk was low at certain times.”

Instead, public policy should focus on vaccination, boost immunization, and testing, he said.

Allen supports the approach adopted by New York City and requires either vaccination or a negative test to enter public places. “I don’t think people need to wear masks in a fully vaccinated environment,” he said.

In some small cities and towns in Massachusetts, mask mandates may be unrealistic for the already thinly growing health sector.

For example, Leominster and Gardner’s public health authorities say that there are no staff left to devote themselves to implementing mask practices due to efforts to run vaccine and testing clinics on Tuesday, mask requirements. I opposed it.

“Maskman dating requires follow-up and enforcement and produces complaints when people do not follow it, and it gets thinner [our] Jeffrey Stevens, Leominster’s Health Director, said: “So our department decided to focus on testing and vaccine mitigation.”

Stevens, who manages six staff in 40,000 cities, said the majority of the population began to wear masks due to the recent surge in incidents. Instead of a mission, he said they wanted to increase mask compliance to the educational message.

Meanwhile, in Boston, where he reassigned his indoor mission in September, a walk around the neighborhood on Tuesday revealed that he was in good compliance with the rules.

Inside the Pricelight grocery store in Dorchester, all shoppers and clerk wore masks. At the next target, all faces remained covered.

In the parking lot outside, some people kept their masks on when they dropped their shopping carts into the car.

However, in Milton, just a few miles away, only the town buildings needed masks, and local stores barely saw face coverings.

An older couple was holding hands when they stepped into a wine shop without a mask. At McKee’s hairdresser, some hairdressers and customers were laid back around the salon, and their smiles and laughter were obvious without a mask.

At the coffee break cafe, I could only see the mask on the chin of the customer who was drinking. The two baristas behind the counter were both maskless as they were preparing drinks for their guests.

Jeremy Luisson, 19, of Milton, one of the baristas, said he would take the mask out of his pocket and usually wear it when the store was crowded. But he didn’t feel it was necessary because there were only a few customers in the cafe.

“At this point, I trust everyone to make their own decisions, but if there is a duty and people don’t keep wearing masks, that’s a completely different story,” Lewisson said.

However, 38-year-old Daniel Basquez was walking nearby with his mask firmly fixed. Basquez of Roslindale was in Milton and was visiting his mother. He said he would wear a mask with or without a mission.

“For me, it’s a really easy decision,” he said, adding that his wife has asthma.

Basquez said it was frustrating to see people without masks around grocery stores and towns.

“What bothers me is ignored by others. It’s not just for yourself, you’re participating in something to protect others and keep people safe.” He said. “I would prefer a mission.”

Travis Andersen and Andrew Brinker contributed to this story.

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