Just to play devil's advocate, even if the actual number of Americans wearing masks is only around 40%-50%, it's still reasonable to expect a reduction in COVID cases compared to the spring.

Yet in New Jersey, yesterday's daily case count was 4353 which surpassed the previous state record of 4305, set back on April 3.

In contrast, the state's death rate, while a lagging indicator, was around 200/day at the beginning of April yet yesterday's tally was 26, the highest it's been since July. Also, NJ hospitalizations were over 6K in early April but are currently at 2K.

So, has the virus become 10x less deadly? Is it now sending people to the hospital 3x less often? Is ICU care 10x better (without any truly effective therapeutics)?

Or could it be that the official cases recorded back in March/April were woefully undercounted due to lack of available testing at that time. As I recall, the majority of testing in March was at hospitals fortunate to even have them available, and even then, tests were only done for some of the very sick. Today tests are relatively easy to get in NJ (and free in many places) so anyone with sniffles or no symptoms at all can verify their status.

So, the current wave may be significantly smaller than it was in the spring and mask wearing (and other precautions) might be working especially if the "actual" NJ daily caseload back in April was really more like 20K to 35K.

We'll likely never know for sure.