Masks alone will not stop an epidemic. But they can do their bit to protect people and rebuild economies
has not been kind to fashionistas. Shops are closed and online purchases can be displayed only through the dismal prism of Zoom. Yet there is a chink of light in this dark sartorial night, for it offers the opportunity for self-expression through this season’s latest must-have item: the face mask.
In much of the rich world, governments now require people to wear masks when they are in crowded public spaces. Britain and America are among the few hold-outs. In America, where few states away from the east coast make them compulsory, the issue has been infected by the polarisation that bedevils the country’s management of the outbreak. That is regrettable, for masks could both save lives and allow people to get back to work.
In normal times, governments should require solid evidence, such as a randomised controlled trial in which a treated group is compared with a control group, before advocating some new health practice. But these are not normal times, and the need for speed makes that impossible. East Asian countries’ success in controlling the disease argues in favour of masks. In many of their cities, masks have been worn for years to protect against pollution or disease, so people covered their faces as soon as they got wind of covid-19. In the West mask-wearing is alien. And in all of the countries where mask-wearing is common practice, the epidemic was swiftly suppressed.
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