To Wear Or Not To Wear

I never thought that wearing a face mask in times of pandemic is an issue; World Health Organization said once as in according to the news, healthy people have the option not to wear face mask but only those who have health problems. But as the pandemic progress now everyone is called to wear most especially on crowded places. Those who are violating the lockdown procedures including wearing face mask are caught.

“As the pandemic unfolded in February, the CDC first insisted that face masks were unnecessary for healthy people. Then in early April, CDC issued new recommendations that called for wearing face masks in certain crowded public situations. It was not until June that CDC issued guidelines calling for everyone to wear cloth face masks in public. WHO was also criticized for not recommending that everyone wear face masks until June.” (Psychology Today)

In the news, there are people who are willing to wear a face mask and there are those who don’t and refrain from wearing face mask. It is said there is a psychological reason for it.

“Much has been said about the political divide over the willingness to wear a face mask in order to reduce the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). According to some surveys, more conservative people are less likely to wear them, often on the grounds that it violates their civil rights. That research seems solid to us, but we are not political experts and wondered if there are psychological reasons that influence some people to refrain from face mask-wearing.” (Psychology Today)

The reasons according to the news are : (1) Culture – people wear mask because it is their long tradition to fight and prevent diseases and in other why they don’t wear face mask because it is not their tradition; (2) Judgement and assessment of risk – how one sees the risk that is why you wear or not wearing a face mask; (3) Confusion – if people do not know exactly or sure of something they may either wear or not a face mask, and according to news on this situation people opt to ignore the issue because of confusion about it. “Confusion about something is often dealt with by ignoring it; that is, if people cannot be sure what is the right thing to do with respect to face masks, they may default to a position of just not thinking about the issue and therefore not wearing them.” (Psychology Today); (4) Sense of control – if you felt control of the situation either by wearing a face mask or not.

Wearing a face mask in time of pandemic does not only upon the dictation of authorities because it is only rational to think that if virus spread in the air or on things, it is only natural to wear one. But if one refuse what can we do.

The main point : Wearing face mask on times of pandemic is both subjective and mandatory.To wear or not to wear depends subjectively and mandatory .