Bit of a controversial statement there, but I'm going to stand by it. Incidentally, I'm not advocating masking in every circumstance forever and ever, but ever since I started watching Japanese reality show Terrace House last year, I've been struck by how normal it is to wear a mask when you're felling sick over there.
This is a nice change from our Anglo-Saxon free-for-all of germs. I used to have a flatmate back in London who would sit in the living room when he got sick, coughing really loudly and not trying to cover it up. I asked him to cover his mouth once, and his response was that I was going to get it anyway, so why bother? Not super helpful.
A few years later, a coworker here in the US was famous in the office for coming in whenever he was sick, even though he was perfectly able to work from home (and would have saved himself a long commute on top of that). Of course he'd spread whatever he had to the rest of us, but what made it worse was that his boss didn't think anything of it - the company's policy was even to pool vacation time and sick time together (at least for their division; mine were separate), which only increased the incentive to come in and make everyone else sick.
I do remember my own experiences in years before that, where I'd have to evaluate whether I was sick enough to stay home, and if not I'd travel to work crammed onto the Tube, then sit in my office and presumably spread my germs to everyone around me. Those were different times though, when we weren't routinely given laptops and so it was harder to actually work from home. All the same, I think managers then, as now, could have been more aggressive about having sick employees stay home where possible.
We could also normalize wearing surgical masks when we're sick, or around others who are, like people in East Asia seem to do. It's a shame it's become politicized here, because it's not a big deal to put on a surgical mask - they may not be as protective as N95s or KN95s, but they seem to do something, and they're not hard to get hold of... in normal circumstances, anyway.
I read this morning about some dimwit in Missouri complaining that schools shouldn't mandate masks, because then kids won't learn about facial cues. On the contrary, I'd argue that if kids only have someone's eyes to look at, they'll get a lot better at reading facial cues - after all, don't models talk about "smize-ing", where you make your smile look genuine by smiling with your eyes? I'm sure I learned this from Tyra Banks.
This future I'm positing doesn't even require 100% mask-wearing compliance in all situations (perhaps idealistically, I'm imagining a future where we aren't in a pandemic - I am, after all, a writer of fantasy). It just requires people to be grown up about listening to their own bodies, and wearing a mask when they start sneezing and coughing to not infect those around them. It also requires us not to conform to this free-market ideal that we show our usefulness by powering through our illnesses and going to work when we probably shouldn't.
Again, these thoughts may be too fanciful for the cultural moment where we find ourselves, but they're worthy goals. If (when!) we get back to the normal run of leaving the house and going to offices and seeing humans, I'll aim to continue wearing masks when I feel it's warranted.
Of course, the damn things being so politicized means I'll be paranoid about some right-wing jerk beating me up for it because I've triggered him somehow. But I'm being the change I want to see in the world. In an absurd, meaningless existence such as our own, that's the one freedom left to us.
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