Is refusing to wear a facemask as anti-social as drink-driving?

We have been warned. The outgoing President of the Royal Society, Venki Ramakrishnan, says that just as drink-driving and failure to wear a seatbelt have come to be seen as anti-social, so “not wearing face coverings in public should be regarded in the same way”. Although they are compulsory on public transport, he said, “many people are ignoring this new rule based on the growing body of evidence that wearing a mask will help protect others — and might even protect you”.

By the end of April only a quarter of Britons had worn masks — yet in the United States, despite Donald Trump’s refusal to do so, two thirds of Americans had done so. The pandemic has spread so fast across America that some states which initially resisted mask-wearing have ordered their citizens to wear face coverings in public buildings. Why the President has chosen to politicise a public health issue has baffled even his own chief adviser on Covid-19, Dr Anthony Fauci (pictured above). He has rebuked Trump for claiming that 99 per cent of coronavirus cases are “harmless”. Asked if the President’s attitude might discourage Americans from taking precautions, Dr Fauci (who regularly wears a mask in public) replied: “Obviously that’s the case. That really is unfortunate…”

Here in Britain, we have less excuse for complacency. Wearing face coverings on public transport is the law and passengers who refuse to do so can be fined. Some shops offer customers masks and staff are not obliged to serve those who do not wear them. Government advice, though hardly consistent, is now to wear masks wherever possible in public places. Yet still most people resist.

How valid is the comparison with driving while “under the influence” or without a seatbelt? The rules of the road are strictly enforced and drivers who flout them risk not only fines but bans or even prison. By contrast, mandatory face coverings on buses, tubes and trains are more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Indeed, it is not uncommon to see Transport for London staff having lowered their masks or even without them. Most certainly do not see it as part of their job to enforce the rules — and only police have the right to impose on-the-spot fines.

Confused? So is everyone else. What is not prohibited is permitted and a prohibition that carries no sanction is hardly worth having. Whereas most people eventually got the message that drink-driving was dangerous not only to oneself but to others, not everybody seems to have grasped the fact that facemasks are primarily intended to protect others from infection. To our initial question — is refusing to wear a facemask as anti-social as drink-driving — the answer for most people is an uncertain: “Yes, but…”  

The psychology of mask-wearing is relevant here. People resist this mild imposition for any number of reasons, practical and aesthetic. They may complain that masks are uncomfortable in hot weather, make it harder to breathe, steam up their glasses, muffle their speech, and so on. Just as important as these more or less genuine physical discomforts, however, is the aesthetic rationale: wearing a mask makes me look ugly, or scary, or simply not myself. The dehumanising effect of covering all or part of the face is something that is instinctively understood in countless other contexts.

Yet in the present pandemic, the facemask has also come to signify something positive: it indicates that the wearer takes the matter seriously and is concerned for their own safety and that of others. It is observable that those who wear masks are often treated with more respect than those who do not. People keep their distance. The face covering has become an informal, non-verbal marker, creating an invisible cordon around the wearer. This is how new social conventions arise. The health-conscious always had their ways and means of self-identification, from taking exercise in public to complicated dieting or responding to the greeting “How are you?” with a detailed account of their state of health. Now they have the facemask. True, not everyone cares about their health — and they have a right not to do so. But Covid-19 is not a lifestyle choice; it is an infectious and lethal disease.

The most interesting question is: how will the new conventions around face covering play out if, as the scientific advice indicates, Covid-19 and perhaps other coronaviruses are here to stay? Economists are already factoring in the likelihood that society will adapt permanently to the “new normal”. Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, posed a question to an online audience at Buckingham University this week: “How big will be the second and third and fourth-wave peaks? They surely will come. What’s to play for is how large those peaks will be.”

The answer to the Haldane question is, surely, that it is up to us. It is a question of evolutionary selection — the survival of the fittest. The less ready we are to adapt our social habits, the more likely we are to fall victim to predatory viruses. Yet some, often but not necessarily younger, people find life-threatening diseases difficult to imagine, let alone their own deaths. The illusion of immortality confers a false sense of security. To challenge such a demigod with a polite request — “Would you mind wearing your mask in here?” — is too daunting, too dangerous, too embarrassing for most civilians who lack the authority of a uniform. But if — or rather when — some of us do fall victim to a resurgent pandemic, we shall only have ourselves to blame.