Mask Mandate Protest: Have COVID Numbers Actually Changed in Larimer County?

On Monday, Nov. 1, troves of people kicked off the new month with a protest against the Larimer County mask mandates that garnered widespread attention.

According to a post in a public Facebook group donned "Larimer County Republican Women", Del Bigtree and conservative political commentator Michelle Malkin led the protest against Larimer County's proposed Vaccine Passport Program.

Larimer County had hinted at a proposal for a mask exemption if businesses required staff and patrons to be vaccinated. That idea was met with incredible backlash from the community.
For the protest, participants were told to meet at the Larimer County Health Fort Collins location from 10 a.m. to noon. According to Bigtree, he estimated around 2,500 people participated.

Bigtree's Twitter post about the protest was met with backlash and suspicion as to how accurate the participating numbers are.

How things have changed in the county since the mask mandate was reinstated?

In short, not a whole lot.

Granted, the county isn't even two weeks into having a mask mandate once again. Which, according to those who have tracked COVID since the beginning, is the incubation period of the virus.

At the start of the pandemic, the advice when exposed or if you tested positive for COVID was to quarantine for two weeks. That number eventually changed to ten days.

With all of that being said, two weeks of a mask mandate is not enough time to truly track any change. In graphs that are consistently updated on Larimer County's COVID-19 Dashboard, there is no visible change in data since the new mandate.