How to help save 130,000 lives

• “We strongly believe we are heading into a pretty grim winter season."
• The new study estimates hospitalizations and deaths will rise until January, then continue at that level until the spring.
• It "also offered a rough estimate of the pandemic’s toll in the United States: perhaps 500,000 deaths by March 2021, even with social distancing mandates reinstated in most states," the Times notes.

The big picture: States with higher percentages of people who wear masks in public tend to have a lower percentage of people who know someone with COVID symptoms, WashPost reports. (See a graphic.)

• Between the lines: “[I]f people say they’re not wearing masks, they may not be taking other protective measures either. So perhaps what we see is a combination of mask usage, other social distancing behaviors and perhaps other factors we haven’t measured," Carnegie Mellon professor Alex Reinhart told the Post.

The bottom line: Wear a mask, help save a life.

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