Coronavirus: On masks and vaccines, we must respect each other

Last Friday night I did something I have rarely had the opportunity to do since the pandemic hit: I arranged to join a large group of friends and colleagues in a packed pub. No superfluous meals, no shivering outside wishing we were inside, no pretending a pub is a sit-down cafe. Just a normal session.

“So what?” ought to be the correct response to such a banal revelation. But in its own small way and at a personal level, heading back into a packed pub for the first time in almost two years is a reasonable waypoint on the road back to normality. And normality is what businesses and people crave as much as anything.

I arrived late in a taxi and wearing a mask. Still donning my mask from the journey, I flung open the door of the bar. It felt as if 200 heads at once turned towards me, the masked invader standing at the entrance. Sergio Leone could have written the scene.

I couldn’t see another face covering, apart from on the chins of a few of the bar staff. I hesitated for the briefest of moments: I put it down to conditioning.

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Then I thought: “So what?” I quickly whipped away my own face covering and squeezed through the crowd, doing the little sidewards pub shuffle that we all use to get through a throng of people, and which hasn’t been a requirement to reach an Irish bar counter since March 15th, 2020. I had a choice and I made it.

It took less than five minutes to get back into the swing of things. I soon learned from many of my companions that they too had hesitated briefly in the same way when they arrived. Yet there we all were, swilling pints a few minutes later and enjoying interacting normally, seemingly comfortable with the risk and uninhibited by the fact there are still 10,000 cases of the virus every day.

Normal hesitancy

This week, as people argue over the merits of dropping the Government's mask mandate in most indoor locations, it feels as if much of Irish society is standing there in a pub door, with an Ennio Morricone tune twanging in the background and a fly walking down the wall. Hesitation is perfectly normal.

But there are effective vaccines now. The illness is much milder and, at some stage, we are all going to have to recalibrate our own approach to risk. Leave your mask on if you want to and feel free to do so unmolested.

But if society as a whole isn’t prepared to embrace a new approach to the rules now, then when? There is nothing wrong with seeking a return to normality and occasionally we should be prepared to push for it.

There are several decent arguments for why some people should continue to wear masks: it does reduce the risk of catching the virus and there is still a lot of it out there. But those arguments are no longer sufficient justification for why it should remain mandatory for all.

England removed its mandatory mask mandate for all but health settings three weeks ago and, so far, it appears to be on the same downwards trajectory in its infection rates as before. Scotland kept stricter mask rules and appears to have harvested no benefit from it.

Crucially, the UK’s health services are under no greater pressure than they were before. That should provide us with some comfort.

Trade unions for teachers, transport and retail workers have expressed reservations. It is their job to be cautious when it comes to the welfare of their members. But surely trade union members frequent bars and restaurants too. The habit of wearing a mask while walking around in most hospitality settings has seemed like nonsense for weeks now. Aerosol particles don’t dissipate as soon as you take your seat. Wearing a mask only on the way to the toilet is ludicrous, and we all know it. So why do it?

Risk reassessed

The truth is that many people have simply reassessed their attitude to risk and now favour seeking normality and a release from the incessant pressure of the virus, which for too long has been our companion. That should be their right, no matter how unwise the more cautious among us believe it to be.

If you feel other people exercising their right impinges upon yours, then make your own choices to compensate for it.

Society is built on a bedrock of trade-offs. There must be a sense of respect for the choices of others at the core of how we move forward. That should go for masks and, at this stage of the game, vaccination.

Some retail employer groups have cautiously welcomed the move towards fewer rules on mask-wearing. Others, including the major supermarkets in Britain, continue to encourage their staff and customers to wear one. That impulse should fade away in time unless the virus comes roaring back. If it does, the approach can pivot again.

There have been many U-turns, bumps and traps along the way but, at this stage of the pandemic, it feels as if the attitude to it in Ireland broadly is much healthier than it currently appears to be in some other countries. Several other liberal nations – Australia and New Zealand stand out – are still in the throes of crisis mode as they learn how to live with the virus.

Both are just as vaccinated as we are, yet Australia inexplicably is still opening new quarantine centres while New Zealand is facing street protests as its people appear to be struggling to accept that, with Omicron, there is a level of the virus they simply must live with.

Thankfully most of that sort of strife is – seemingly, hopefully – behind us. Let us not get in a lather about masks.