WEAR A MASK — Philosophy UNLEASHED

I have found the politicisation and pseudo-moralising over the wearing of masks one of the strangest and most disheartening things to come out of this pandemic.

Of course no one likes to wear a mask. They’re cumbersome, they become uncomfortable, breathing feels different when wearing one, they’re claustrophobic, they’re one more thing to forget whenever you leave the house. Masks suck. We can all agree on that.

But they may just save a life.

Peter Singer famously asked us what our instincts would be if we were to happen across a drowning child on our way to a job interview. Intuitively it just seems right that we would try to save the child, even at the risk of ruining our expensive suit and shoes, even at the risk of missing the interview. The person who leaves them to drown for the sake of their nice clothes or even their job opportunity seems like a moral monster of some sort, and Singer uses that shared moral intuition to show us that we are doing this all the time to those who live in poverty on the other side of the world. When we cling to our money instead of giving what we can afford to charity, we are essentially letting the child die for the sake of our fancy shoes.

While I admit the analogy isn’t entirely perfect (in the charity/drowning child example there is more certainty than we can find with the current Covid crisis. The child - whether starving or drowning - will die without our support. However it remains entirely possible that if I choose not to wear a mask today in a crowded room full of strangers, so long as none of us are infected, we all still go away ultimately unharmed by my lapse) it does seem similar enough to say that refusing to wear a mask which might save someone else’s life just to spare yourself some minor discomfort amounts to the same thing as letting the drowning child die. In fact the uncertainty of the mask’s specific efficacy in each setting potentially makes the need for the mask at all times all the more pressing. Consider it as the following argument:

There is a potentially deadly virus which spreads through contact with large droplets and aerosols from infected people’s breath.
The main measures to prevent the spread of the virus in this way is to create space from other people’s breath by social distancing, ensure as much ventilation as possible in enclosed spaces, and wearing a mask.
Wearing a mask curbs the level at which I personally contribute my own water droplets and aerosols into the shared air. If I have the potentially deadly virus, therefore, wearing a mask will help prevent the spread of that virus to other people and should be worn.

However…

4. If I do not have the virus, wearing the mask doesn’t help me personally as, in most cases, it is not guaranteed to prevent water droplets or aerosols from others infecting me and I will not help others as I have no infection to spread to them.

Point (4) is the part where some people feel it stops being obvious that wearing a mask is the right thing to do. It becomes entirely possible, given certain circumstances, that wearing a mask in some situations makes no one safer.

However…

5. The virus can be asymptomatic, meaning I may have the virus without any symptoms of the virus, so I do not ever know for sure if I have it and am contagious or not.

Given (5), it seems to me the problems raised by (4) are trumped by the uncertainty of whether or not we ever are in the circumstances in which mask-wearing will not help. Without knowing for sure if any of us in the room actually are infectious or not (a significant likelihood in the UK, given our appalling testing situation) then the only defendable conclusion is this:

6. I ought to act cautiously, as if I do have the virus at all times, and therefore protect others by wearing a mask whenever I interact with others in environments where transmission is possible. This includes even circumstances even where social distancing and ventilation are in place, but definitely in situations where either social distancing or ventilation are not possible or inadequate.

Again, as stated earlier, I concede that mask wearing is not ideal and can even be rather unpleasant. But unless there is a genuine medical reason why you can’t wear one, “I just don’t like it” is not a good enough reason to put other people’s health at risk. Yes, it remains true that many who have suffered from Covid 19 have experienced only a minor illness, and we do not mitigate the risk of other minor illnesses in similar ways, but as yet we do not seem to have a way of knowing for sure whether someone infected with the virus will only experience a minor illness or experience a more severe and deadly infection. Therefore this is not like a common cold or flu, this is rolling a dice on someone’s prospects for survival and playing Russian Roulette with other people’s lives. There is also the growing concern about what is being called “Long Covid” - the infection that will not die and leads to months and months of suffering. To suggest it doesn’t matter too much if someone gets Covid 19 is to demonstrate a massive level of disregard for those we share our lives with. And this is without even considering the knock-on effects on other healthcare provision as hospitals and doctors get overwhelmed with rising numbers of Covid patients leading to suffering and fatalities elsewhere in the system.

To contribute to that chaos, to prolong the far stricter lockdowns and more significant infringements on personal freedoms in places where the virus is out of control just because wearing a mask is not ideal seems indefensible to me.

That said, here in the UK, it is hard to blame people for responding to mask wearing in the way that they have. They have been encouraged to rebel against them since day one when the UK government, in direct opposition to the rest of the world and the advice coming from scientists and the WHO, insisted that masks were not necessary here. And when they did finally concede their necessity, instead of public health messaging about masks going something along the lines of: “perform this mild inconvenience for me and I’ll do it for you; together we’ll stop community spread” we had the following messages from government on masks:

You might actually give yourself Covid 19 from putting it on wrong!
It’s hard to breathe in a mask and if you find it difficult you should take it off!
Masks might cause a panic attack so don’t begrudge people who choose not to wear one for mental health reasons!
Masks will fog up your glasses and could be a hazard!
Find your own mask because we’re not supplying them to you...but be careful because some masks might not work!
Masks only need to be worn as a last resort when all other measures are absent.
Masks don’t need to be worn in crowded and poorly ventilated school-settings.
Masks will inhibit student learning and should not be worn by teachers as you can’t hear someone talk from behind a mask.
Masks pose a security risk because they cause problems for facial recognition software!
Etc...

Imagine if instead of all that negativity we had been given clear public health messaging about how to make or buy good quality masks and how to put them on safely; what to do if we find it hard to breathe in one and advice about how not to panic in a mask; advice about sprays you can put on your glasses to stop the fogging up; videos that show what is possible in one (I personally have taught hours of lessons in a mask, to fully masked students, held debates and discussions with them on, gone on hikes in mask and even had a six hour tattoo session in one…and I am an asthmatic who suffers from panic attacks. Yes I was nervous at first, but I dealt with it for the greater good)…etc. If you present something to someone as an inconvenience or something scary then they will perceive it as such. If you present it as a necessary evil and offer encouragement to overcome obstacles and solutions to perceived problems then you get buy-in.

But the disastrous public health messaging on masks, at this point, can’t take all the blame, because we have all seen the numbers of infections rising, we have seen the government being wrong on every approach to the virus they have taken since March, and we have the ability to make better decisions for ourselves. Unfortunately there is a school of though around masks that equates personal liberty with the freedom not to wear one, regardless of the potential consequences. A selfish conception of what it means to be free that ignores our social connections with, and the needs of, others for personal desire and gain. At this point, whether we are philosophers familiar with Singer’s drowning child, or non-philosophers with a basic awareness of the world around them, we all should know enough to know why we ought to wear a mask. Therefore those without legitimate medical reasons still choosing not to must be doing one of the following:

Choosing to put their own personal comfort ahead of the health and safety of others because they are selfish.
Choosing to put their own personal comfort ahead of the health and safety of others because they believe freedom means doing whatever is best for you, even if it leads to negative consequences for others (in which case, they are selfish).
Choosing to put their own personal comfort ahead of the health and safety of others because they believe masks are ineffective, or Covid 19 is a hoax (in which case they are ignorant of reality).
Choosing to put their own personal comfort ahead of the health and safety of others because they believe masks can be effective and Covid 19 is real but they don’t need to wear one because they don’t have it (in which case they do not understand how Covid can be asymptomatic…which at this point everyone should know).
Choosing to put their own personal comfort ahead of the health and safety of others because they believe masks can be effective and Covid 19 is real but they have already had Covid and got better from it so are no longer infectious (in which case they do not understand that we still know too little about Covid and immunity to make such claims…which at this point everyone should know too).
Choosing to put their own personal comfort ahead of the health and safety of others because they hold some contrarian notion that doing what people tell you to and following rules should be rebelled against even when the rules actually make sense (in which case, they are stupid).

In other words the only reason not to be wearing a mask when interacting with people these days unless there is a legitimate medical reason you can’t is because you are stupid or because you are selfish. Neither is something to be proud of, and neither is based in any defendable conception of morality or personal freedom.

So wear a damn mask you selfish idiots.

Author: DaN McKee

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