Why wearing a face covering is absolutely the right thing to do – leader comment

Wearing a face mask or covering in shops and on public transport, where social distancing is difficult, will save lives and help the economy to continue to re-open.

If Nicola Sturgeon can wear a face mask then you can too (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell /PA Wire)

Wearing a face mask isn’t something many people would choose to do, so it is possible there may be resistance to the Scottish Government’s decision to make wearing a face-covering in shops mandatory, as it currently is on public transport.

However, it is crystal clear from the available scientific evidence – as well as basic common sense – that face masks are a good way to stop the coronavirus outbreak, given the disease can spread through droplets of liquid in coughs, sneezes or simply our breath.

If we do what we can to stop the spread of the virus, we are both saving lives and helping to ensure that the government can continue to safely re-open the economy. Or, in other words, if we do not wear a mask, we could potentially be causing the death of one or more people and putting others, perhaps including ourselves, out of work.

Sometimes it is hard to think that what we do on an individual level will have any kind of significant impact on the bigger picture. So we might give ourselves a pass to pop quickly into a local shop without a mask. But that’s where the problems start. We need to make face-coverings the norm in places where we cannot socially distance, so we all must do our bit.

We should, however, remember that people with certain medical conditions are exempt from wearing a mask, so not be too hasty to condemn anyone we see who does not have one on. A rush to judgment almost always leads to a mistake.

In the US, masks have somehow become a political issue with protests against them. During the 1918-19 flu pandemic, there were similar scenes with the creation of an anti-mask league in San Francisco, while a banker in Arizona insisted on going to jail, instead of paying a fine, for not wearing a mask.

However, even Donald Trump has finally come round to the idea after weeks of pressure to set an example by wearing a mask in public. Apparently, the US president is now willing to do so after trying on a black mask that he said made him look “like the Lone Ranger”. That may suggest he’s not wearing it correctly, but at least, for once with Trump, the sentiment was the right one. Sometimes we all have to do something we don’t want to. Wearing a mask in places where we cannot maintain social distancing is one of them.

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