Compulsory masks - for the common good or an impractical policy? | Sam Hall
Such a dispute exemplifies a rift between two factions within the Conservative movement: a fight between the common good and individual liberty. Let us investigate the arguments for both.
Face mask wearing has begun not only great controversy but also great confusion. The prime minister announced they will be compulsory in shops in England, following on from Michael Gove who said that he believed mask wearing should be advisory and not compulsory to help fight COVID-19.
Regarding this virus, much is always up in the air, though research from the department of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong has found that wearing masks can reduce transmission via respiratory droplets by as much as 75%. Similar research surfaced this month from Texas A&M University declaring masks ‘critical’ in preventing the spread of the disease.
Such a policy wins my personal full support. As a small-c conservative as well as a Tory, I support making calculated decisions that change the status quo in a controlled manner, in such a way that we maximise the outcome while minimising the risks. Of all the hills to die on, being anti-mask seems a bizarre one. It has come later than ideal but it seems like a comparatively small ask that we can all play as part of our collective responsibility to keep our communities safe. Even if it makes little or no difference, it is an extremely easy task and a very easy policy to reverse. So far, so conservative.
The rule follows official advice from the World Health Organisation (an organisation that admittedly hasn’t preserved its reputable and trustworthy status over this crisis). It is also being introduced as Western nations observe the relative success in controlling the virus in Japan and Korea; nations of wearers whose success in getting the virus on the decline has been attributed to such a trait.
There’s also good precedent to the government mandating what people wear for individual safety. At a construction site, for example, we must wear PPE like high-visibility clothing, hard hats, and steel-toe capped boots. Of course, there are a myriad of other safety procedures that minimise the risks, but PPE will help you mitigate some of the risks associated with working on a building site. In a similar way, no-one is suggesting a mask is equivalent to a full hazmat suit, but it’s an easy and simple way to mitigate the risk of passing on COVID-19, especially if you're a-symptomatic.
Because wearing a mask is not just about you. It’s also about people who want to go shopping but are terrified that it will be a death sentence. Masks are therefore a key part of re-starting the economy in places where social distancing cannot always be adhered to. Like all good politics and indeed manners, it’s about putting other people first and creating an environment where everyone feels more comfortable to shop, even if that means your personal freedoms are marginally infringed and your glasses get steamed up.
But how practical is such a policy?
To play devil’s advocate, masks are no good without proper social distancing and regular handwashing. That is because there are many ways to catch COVID-19 other than airborne particles. Their effectiveness also depends upon people using them properly. If they do not cover the nose and mouth, they are useless, and realistically many people are not going to go about their day to day without ever touching their mask, face, or other possibly contaminated surfaces. We have to think about how realistic prolific mask wearing is, especially as some evidence suggests that mass mask wearing can actually increase the likelihood of contracting the virus, along with risking increased CO2 levels in extreme cases, depending on how tightly they are worn.
Not only this, but there are environmental concerns as well. Disposable PPE has already found its way into the sea, which poses a very real threat to wildlife. At the very time when we were broadly accepting that single-use items are bad for the environment, Boris then goes and makes a single-use device mandatory? Some people cannot afford the pretty patterned reusable ones that seem to have become trendy. This demonstrates a level of disdain for common people and the environment.
Finally, this is an infringement on the right to decide what people can wear. COVID-19 has been used as an excuse to gently grow the police state and this is another facet of it. It is not acceptable for the police to spend all day fining people for not wearing masks when they should be out catching criminals. What world do we live in when the police are more eager to catch people flouting social distancing, sunbathing in a park or not wearing a mask in a shop, than they are at catching child abusers and other dangerous criminals?
And what does this also say about the timing? At a time when deaths are at record lows, it seems odd to only now implement compulsory mask wearing when this policy may have well have been welcomed at the height of the pandemic. Is this really about controlling the virus, or making it easier for shops to relax social distancing measures in some areas, due to many shops warning of being crippled by the 2 metre rules? Masks are advised where social distancing is not possible, so it is likely that this form of social control is more about reassuring others rather than it is actually reducing the spread of coronavirus.
This policy is too little on its own and too dependent on people’s ability to wear it properly. Not only that, but it has the potential to harm the environment and create yet more work for police officers who clearly have much better things to do.
A very convincing argument can be made that we should instead be focusing on regular hand washing and proper social-distancing and not giving the police more excuses to infringe upon individual freedoms. Only time will tell if this will be effective, or draconian laziness from our legislators.
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