Months after the COVID-19 pandemic made it to our shores, states and counties now find themselves debating whether or not to institute mandatory face mask requirements. There are no easy answers. But as we try to work things out among ourselves, a nagging question lingers: will face masks become daily attire in this country?
One of the oldest uniform rental and linen companies in the world, Alsco, recently introduced a new line of face masks to their healthcare inventory. These are fabric masks made with three layers of fabric in accordance with CDC guidelines.
Alsco officials say the masks were introduced to accommodate the evolving needs of the healthcare sector. That makes perfect sense. But masks are showing up everywhere these days; it is not just hospitals and doctors’ offices.
Wearing Masks in Public
Some states have instituted mandatory mask policies that require citizens to cover their faces whenever they leave home. They must wear masks in public, whether in outdoor or indoor spaces. Other states have chosen a more relaxed rule that only mandates masks when indoors. Still other states have no mandatory mask policies in place.
What concerns some people is the potential long-term psychological impact of wearing face masks in public. They look to Asian countries for which mask wearing is fairly common. They wonder if Americans will ever get to the point of always wearing a face mask in public – even when coronavirus is just a memory.
Are we there yet? Will we ever get there? Again, there are no easy answers. This is so new to the U.S. that many of us haven’t had enough time to truly grasp all of the implications and nuances. Yet we do have other examples to look at.
Face Masks in Asia
Mask wearing in public may be new to us, but it is not new to Asia. Consider a 2014 report published by Quartz. According to Quartz contributor Jeff Yang, Asian immigrants in Manhattan were routinely seen wearing masks in public. That was six years ago – long before coronavirus was a thing to worry about.
Yang went on to explain that face masks are fairly routine in Asia. He cited the 2002 SARS and 2006 bird flu outbreaks as primary influences. Both diseases had a fairly strong psychological impact on Asia despite the final statistics being a fraction of early estimates.
Back then, cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai were said to be prime targets for SARS and bird flu. After all, where people are densely packed into small areas, viruses are said to promulgate more easily. Asian citizens were encouraged to wear masks in order to stop the spread of the two diseases.
Mask wearing became so prevalent for so long that people just accepted it as being normal. Some 18 years after the original SARS outbreak, many Asians don’t even think twice about wearing a mask. They put one on whenever they venture outside of the house.
Time Will Tell
None of this is to take a position on daily mask wearing one way or the other. It is simply to state that there is precedent behind the idea that face masks will eventually become routine attire in the U.S. Time will tell. Maybe we will all dispense with our masks once coronavirus is declared under control. Perhaps not.
Just six months ago very few Americans would have even considered wearing a face mask in public. Now it is so common we do not even think about it. It’s funny how quickly the human psyche can change when influences are strong enough.
