A masking mess?
What's going on when remove our masks and pretend that the pandemic isn't happening?
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We don't really have a culture of masking here in New Zealand. It was more of an add-on for when times were tough, and for many it's almost a bit of theatre now. People perhaps put it on as a show of respect when going to the doctors or the vet, or where they know people would have strong preferences. But, for many, it's more of a social signal than belief that it has any effect.
The discourse has moved more to one of "freedom and personal responsibility" rather than one of "protection and community concern". This is really unfortunate and is more about politics than anything else. With new variants able to escape vaccine-mediated immunity more than before, our multilayer cloak of protection has more holes in it than previously thought.
Stepping up masking is an easy and low-impact way of stepping up that protection. It's an easy behaviour to adopt, but it has got caught up in politics.
Losing the signal
Unfortunately, the removal of mandatory masking was perhaps interpreted as a signal that the worst of the pandemic was over. The other part of the message that masking would need to be stepped up as hazards around us increased was lost in the noise a little.
Gotcha journalism and social media trying to trap people / leaders as hypocritical doesn't help. People make mistakes, and the idea is to minimise risk as much as possible. People in leadership positions confusing the signal to wear masks by getting into official photo ops unmasked probably aren't doing themselves or the wider community trying to minimise their risks any favours.
It's another signal to those who don't want to wear a mask that it probably doesn't matter, so why bother? More about photos later in this piece.
Cognitive biases
Making a choice about mask-wearing in a particular situation also plays into our confirmatory bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values.
Note here that it depends on our beliefs and values. If we have pre-existing beliefs we want to have minimal restrictions on our lives and / or we don’t think the pandemic is that serious, then we will look for and recall information that supports these beliefs. That includes the idea that because masks are no longer compulsory in so many places, that they can lower their guard and not even mask-up where it is in their best interests to (and others' best interests too). They just don't believe this to be the case.
Another tendency that people who do not wish to mask may reveal is optimism bias. This is when we believe we are less likely to have something bad happen to us.
You might say to yourself: “Because I am vaccinated and boosted, I can do pretty much whatever I want.”
"Sure, technically it makes sense that I should wear a mask, but my personal judgement is that my risk is low because of my vaccination status, and I don't believe Omicron - whatever variant - is that serious, anyway. So, even if I get sick, it won't be that bad."
Despite all evidence to the contrary, some of us will convince ourselves that we’re following sound strategies to stay safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We now know that’s not true. It reduces your risk of getting seriously ill, but there is emerging data backing the idea that we really want to be reducing the number of times we are infected with Covid, as this may increase our risk of long covid or other problems. UPDATED: There is still some uncertainty on this so worth keeping an eye on.
We may tend towards giving ourselves a lot of leeway, only to be hyper-critical of others. When bad things happen to other people, for example, we might look for ways to blame them for their outcome: “Well, they had an underlying health condition,” or “They must have made bad choices.”
It’s easy to point fingers at others for their mistakes, while reassuring ourselves that our own decisions and actions are better than theirs.
The truth is, everyone has blind spots.
Let's pretend there's no pandemic
There’s the issue of cognitive dissonance — the mental discomfort experienced when our beliefs or actions contradict each other. If we believe the pandemic is over or not serious, and we are asked to wear masks, or even see others wearing masks around us, this can feel very challenging. So much so that people can and have reacted with aggressive hostility to those bearing the message that mask-wearing is advised. This can and has ranged from online aggression to politicians and scientists to shop-assistants or cashiers in real life to riots. Or maybe we are more passive, and we just "forget" to bring a mask.
We rationalize in order to avoid any internal conflicts. We also look for information that justifies our behavior or makes us feel like an exception to the rule, even if it isn't true.
And we engage in external conflict with those that attempt to dismantle our rationalisation.
Disinformation serves this purpose. It's a false knowledge base that enables us to justify our decision not to adhere to public health advice.
What's going on with photos?
Maybe all this also explains why people want to take masks off when a photo is being taken. Take a dash of peer pressure, and add a mixer of optimism bias finished with a touch of dissonance, and just for a few seconds, we can share a moment which we can look at where we can pretend that the pandemic wasn't really happening.
Cheers!
The other interesting part to this is social proof, which leads us into something of a chicken-and-egg kind of situation. If we see others around us not wearing masks, even if we know objectively that we should wear a mask, it's easier to go with the crowd rather than feeling like we are sticking out. Worse still, people will see that we are sticking out when that photos is inevitably shared. We don’t want to look like the social oddball.
So yes, I can see why masks come off for photos. I still think it's a not such a great idea in risky situations like proximity to others and being indoors.
Reason for hope
Perhaps the dial is shifting again, recognising that masking is an excellent tool when pandemic hazards around us increase. I have certainly seen more masking going on around me over the past week, but that follows the rise of cases being reported rather than being ahead of that curve.
To get ahead of that curve again, timely data reporting is really important. But so is leadership and modelling.
I was the MC for a 200+ person event last week. I encouraged everyone to follow MOH recommendations, masking if not speaking on stage or eating. I saw over 90% adherence from my position on the stage.
It can be done. Set expectations for behaviour. Calmly show the right behaviour by keeping your mask on where and when you can when in risky conditions.
Protect yourself each other. This isn't over yet.
A masking mess?
So, working in big box retail, we "facilitate and encourage but don't confront" the non-mask wearers. My colleague (who has direct line of sight to the main door) is keeping score of "count of non-mask wearers/hours spent observing". It had reached 8, then when the latest reminder came out, it dropped to around 4. The real issue we see is the sense of entitlement and arrogance, which you don't mention. Where do these fit in to the science you espouse?
I don't think we should let off that easily all the Anti-vaxxers, Anti-maskers & Anti-mandaters spreading & creating disinformation & outright lies. By making minimal necessary health measures political the Anti-Sensible crowd is letting people die unnecessarily.
So to all of the Anti-Sensible crowd who repeatedly platform & spread the lies, so people don't follow necessary health measures, resulting in COVID spreading faster, more people suffering long term COVID & dying - the SNOT from all the excess COVID sufferers is on your hands, phones & keyboards!