Is Mask Mandate working?

Vanderbilt study says mask mandates are working in Tennessee.

Local officials say they are seeing it here in Hamilton County.

Crowded field.

It's been a little more than a month now since hamilton county implemented a mask mandate.

So is wearing one helping to slow the curve?

News 12's joeli poole has reaction from local health officials.

It's been 32 days since hamilton county implemented a mask mandate, so enough time has passed for officials to evaluate if the mandate is really helping to slow the spread of the virus?

A new study from vanderbilt reveals that counties who have implemented a mask mandate are, in fact, seeing lower covid-19 hospitalizations, while counties without a mandate, are reporting a 200% increase in hospitalizations since july 1st.

Kerry hayes / covid-19 task force "26 of tennessee's 95 counties have some sort of facemask requirement in place.

Hamilton county is obviously one.

Compliance has been very high, that's been good.

We really need state wide face mask mandates and that could not be more clear.

Georgia needs one for that matter because the data that proves how effective they are just proves the point."

Since the pandemic began, hamilton county has recorded over 6,000 positive coronavirus cases, and 55 deaths.

The number of active cases is currently over 1,400.

According to data from the hamilton county health department, between july15 and july 31st an average of 100 new covid-19 cases were reported each day- the highest number to date.

However data after the first few weeks in august, revealed that the average fell to 70 new cases per day.

Rae bond / covid-19 task force "we are seeing trends in the number of hospitalizations.

I think one of the most telling numbers for this week is that there were 77 people hospitalized yesterday in hamilton county and only 33 of them were hamilton county residents.

The rest were from surrounding counties and those surrounding counties do not have mask mandates."