Are we ready to be a country of masked men and women?
The public has agreed to stay home to flatten the curve and prevent the spread of the coronavirus. But eventually, there will need to be a next step — a better, more flexible alternative that allows the country to begin reopening slowly.
Many health officials have proposed a medical mask requirement. Masks are proven to reduce significantly the spread of droplets that might contain the virus, which means the more people who wear them, the harder it will be for the sick to infect the healthy. Thus, publicly requiring masks seems like a feasible transition out of strict social distancing.
This has happened before: Surgical face masks were widely adopted as protection against the Spanish flu in 1918, an epidemic that killed an estimated 675,000 people in the United States. California Gov. William Stephens declared at the time that it was the “patriotic duty of every American citizen” to wear a mask, and San Francisco eventually made it the law. Citizens who were caught in public without medical masks could be charged with “disturbing the peace” and fined $5.
Medical masks might once again become the new normal, but people will want to shed them as quickly as possible. Unlike Eastern cultures, which have accepted medical masks as regular, everyday commodities, Americans tend to see masks as awkward and obstructive last resorts.
That might change, however, if the culture is encouraged to change its perspective from the top down. Already, dozens of celebrities have turned what is supposed to be an emblem of good hygiene into a fashion statement. Designers are creating customized styles. And Etsy features pages and pages of custom prints that range anywhere from $6.99 to $40.
Regardless of whether the trend lasts, it’s probably safe to assume that most of us will don a medical mask at one point or another in the near future.
