Coronavirus: Mixed messaging on masks a fatal mistake

Boris Johnson claims he has done everything he could “to minimise suffering and the loss of life” in the pandemic. He didn’t and he isn’t. And one of this country’s greatest and little-remarked failures is the careless muddle of its masking policy.

Masks matter. They save lives. They can cut transmission by 80 per cent and may make infections less virulent. But their effectiveness depends on what they’re made of, how closely they fit over nose and face and how rarely they are removed.

In enclosed spaces with poor ventilation it’s not enough just to put a mask on when somebody approaches, because the World Health Organisation has been warning us for months that the virus spreads by aerosols which linger in the air, not just by droplets which rapidly fall to the ground. Taking a mask off to talk face-to face, a common gesture, is one of the easiest ways to catch and transmit the virus, particularly when infected people are either asymptomatic or in the highly contagious stage several days before symptoms appear.

Vague, late, contradictory advice

None of this is clear in the government’s advice, which has always been vague, late, outdated and contradictory. It started with the deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries telling us ten months ago not to wear masks, “as they may make things worse”. Official communication about the changing understanding of the danger has not improved much since then.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wearing a face mask, leaves 10 Downing Street in central London on January 27. Picture: Tolga Akmen/AFP

“Hands, face, space” is still the mantra when much of the evidence emerging shows the risk of infection from surfaces is low and the risk from breathing contaminated air is high. “Breath, mask, space” might convey the danger more accurately but the word “aerosol” doesn’t even appear in the government’s main Covid page. The only public instruction on mask-wearing is the indistinct “wear a face covering”, as if a loosely draped, loosely woven scarf below the nose is doing the same job as a surgical or medical mask contoured around the face.

The result is that everywhere you can see people with masks around their mouths or with bandannas hanging off the tips of their noses, all imagining that they’re pretty much doing what’s needed or that if they aren’t, it’s only their personal concern anyway. The critical message about mask-wearing — that it, like vaccination, is infinitely more effective at cutting community transmission if almost everybody does it — is simply absent.

The government’s policy on enforcement is equally half-hearted and impotent. It has introduced fierce regulations on mask-wearing in public places, punishable with fines and tightened again this month, and then undermined them completely with a long list of exemptions, all self-certified.

People needn’t wear masks if they have mental or physical impairments, which “may not be visible to others”, or if doing so would cause them “severe distress”. There are no medical checks needed or even available for these claims and no one need show any evidence if challenged. Anyone who wants to carry an exemption card may download one from the government website or write their own.

A commuter wears an FFP2 protective face mask on a public transport underground train in Vienna. Picture: Alex Halada/AFP

Far from encouraging the public to ask others to mask up, official advice reminds people to be “mindful and respectful” of others’ circumstances. In the same vein, posters in rail stations remind travellers that others may have good reasons not to mask, so they should “be kind”.

Faced with these contradictions, how exactly are the police, transport staff, retailers and the public meant to react to those wearing masks half-heartedly or not at all? The police know they cannot change behaviour in this muddle and on their own. One senior officer speaking anonymously this month pointed out that 40,000 officers on duty can’t enforce regulations on 65 million people if they don’t want to follow them. Social pressure is necessary and vital but simultaneously officially discouraged.

The fatal effect of that is clear. Everyone wants good behaviour in shops, buses and trains but hopes someone else will enforce it. The police say supermarkets and small shops must do it themselves; the independent retailers and the shopworkers’ unions say they can’t because they are so abused already; Matt Hancock claims the public will police themselves; shopkeepers hope customers will tell one another. Everyone involved is reluctant to interfere because they feel scared, or overwhelmed, or disempowered.

Call out maskless at your own risk

I know just why people shy away. In a small shop just before Christmas I asked a well-dressed couple in their fifties, unmasked, whether they would mind putting theirs on. It ignited an explosion. Who did I think I was, a f***ing traffic warden? No, there was no f***ing pandemic. It ended with their storming out, but not before the woman had turned at the door to cough and spit venomously in my direction.

We need a new clear and ruthless masking campaign, with posters, slogans and online pop-up ads. We are all desperate to escape this pandemic limbo as soon as possible and proper enforced masking, with medically approved exemptions, is one of the cheapest, simplest routes out.

We can’t trust soggily to others behaving well. We’re past that now. Official woolliness has exacerbated the catastrophe.

The government’s paralysis on this is mystifying. So many of the decisions that have had to be made during the pandemic were brutal, complex, sad and costly. Masks aren’t.

The Times