Face masks - public safety or dangerous superstition?
Pedestrians wearing masks make their way through a shopping district in virus-hit Daegu, Korea, March 4. Reuters
By Amanda Price
People everywhere are desperately hoping they will not catch the coronavirus (COVID-19).
Many feel helpless and, because scientists are yet to find a vaccine, are willing to do whatever it takes to protect themselves, and those they love.
Washing your hands and maintaining strict hygiene is something intangible. It is an invisible barrier and therefore lacks substance. Despite every health authority telling us that hygiene and maintaining distance are the most effective means of combating the virus, we feel we should do more.
It makes sense to do more, to do as much as you can to protect yourself and others. It is instinctual. It is visceral. It is human.
When instinct, however, ignores and resists what science can prove, then what we call “instinct” is in truth “superstition.”
Since COVID-19 appeared on our doorstep, face masks have become the new pink. Everyone is wearing one, and those who don't are frowned on for acting irresponsibly, even recklessly.
This mindset, this obsession with wearing face masks when one is healthy, or not caring for the ill, has little to do with science, health or even reality.
Medical authorities, particularly infectious disease experts, have informed the world that face masks, particularly the generic ones most people wear, do not stop healthy humans from breathing in air particles carrying the virus.
This information is conclusive, not conjecture.
Further than this, the frenetic obsession with wearing face masks is likely to have been instrumental in the spread of the virus.
This is because most face masks require adjusting. In doing so, people touch their face, the very place where the gateways for the virus are situated.
These simple or involuntary actions can increase the risk of infection and consequently increase the spread of the virus.
Infection prevention specialist Dr. Eli Perencevich explained: “The average healthy person does not need to have a mask, and they shouldn't be wearing masks … There's no evidence that wearing masks on healthy people will protect them … and they can increase the risk of infection because (as a result) they're touching their face more often.”
Dr. Perencevich insisted washing your hands, carrying hand sanitizer and wiping down surfaces will actually kill the virus, something a mask cannot do.
Scientists everywhere have continued to reinforce this same advice, but tragically we continue to ignore them.
Some medical experts, exhausted from repeating this over and over, have taken to social media to get their message out.
At the end of February, the U.S. Surgeon General, Jerome M. Adams, tweeted: “Serious people ― STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching the coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has copped some flak during the past few weeks, but we would still be shooting ourselves in the foot to ignore its warnings.
WHO Health Emergency Program Executive Director Dr. Michael Ryan announced at a press conference: “There are severe strains on protective equipment around the world. Our primary concern is to ensure that our front-line health workers are protected and that they have the equipment they need to do their jobs.”
All the world over, regardless of nationality, health officials have resorted to pleading with the public. Unless you are ill, or caring for someone who is ill, you have no reason to wear masks.
Masks are primarily to stop an infected person from giving the virus to someone else, and to minimize the risk for health care workers.
As WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated: “… Governments must act quickly to boost supply, ease export restrictions and put measures in place to stop speculation and hoarding. We cannot stop COVID-19 without protecting health workers first (emphasis entirely mine).
“The most important thing everyone can do is wash your hands, keep your hands away from your face and observe very precise hygiene.”
Dr. Ryan added: “Our primary concern is to ensure that our front-line health workers are protected and that they have the equipment they need to do their jobs.”
It is unlikely that any of this is news to anyone.
So why do we continue to line up in congested queues for hours, purchase bulk quantities of face masks and wear them even when experts tell us they could harm health care workers and potentially spread the virus?
The answers may differ from person to person, but one over-arching answer is that we continue wearing masks because it is what everyone else is doing.
It is a collective conscience override that makes us believe that if lots of people are doing something, it must be worth doing.
“If everyone is wearing masks, then it must be for a good reason.”
“So many people can't be wrong.”
“Perhaps others have information that I don't have?”
“I don't want to look like that one person who doesn't care.”
This heightened sense of “it must be worth doing” is further reinforced when celebrities and influencers promote face masks by wearing them on social media or in public appearances.
But when this crisis has passed or been fully contained, those who ignored expert advice will become lessons that we must never repeat.
The hoarders, the scammers and thieves, those who stood in queues creating congestion and a Petri dish for the virus, these memories will not soon fade.
We may have heard expert advice a hundred times, but perhaps on the 101st time we may listen.
It is only fitting to close with the words of an expert ― professor in biophysics at Johns Hopkins University, Karen Fleming:
“You've heard it over and over already, but the best way to protect yourself from the coronavirus really, truly, honestly is to regularly wash your hands with soap and water. Coronavirus is an 'enveloped' virus, which means that it has an outer lipid membrane layer, an outer layer of fat. Washing your hands with soap and water has the ability to 'dissolve' this greasy, fatty layer and kill the virus.”
To wear a face mask or to listen to experts? That is our decision. Whatever we choose, the consequences ― good or bad ― will be our contribution to this crisis.