Post-pandemic life: Is the mask here to stay?
SARS inspired mask-wearing abroad; will the same thing happen in America following the COVID-19 pandemic?
With foggy glasses caused by wearing a mask, Charles Ewing with Ewing Moving and Storage moves boxes of office supplies into the new FedEx Logistics building on Friday, Feb. 12, 2021. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)
Like any other business, professional movers have their essential tools of the trade – a vertical two-wheeled hand truck, lifting straps and ropes, “sliders” to help protect floors, and wraps and padding to safeguard furniture.
Oh, and for about the last year, masks for the crew hauling everything to and from the trucks, in and out of houses and office buildings.
“Our employees will continue to wear masks as much as they possibly can. It helps to not share germs,” Charles Ewing, owner of Ewing Moving & Storage, said with a glance toward that blessed day when we reach herd immunity in the fight against COVID-19. “I think masks are here to stay.
“And I don’t think anyone will be frowned upon for wearing a mask even after the pandemic is gone.”
The mask invades everyday life
Craig Unger is president of the Memphis Redbirds and Memphis 901 FC. He is also a father of three daughters – Emma, 16; Ellen, 14; and Eden, who just turned 11.
Birthdays are milestones, but this time Unger had a different thought about his youngest girl: “For 10% of her life, she’s been wearing a mask.”
He has noticed something else, too. In the early days of the pandemic, he was playing the usual Dad role when everyone loaded up in the car.
“For a while, I had to ask, `Do you have a mask?’ Now, they are asking me.”
At some point, probably indiscernible in the moment, everyone in the Family Unger strapping on a mask just became normal, the way life had to be lived.
Now, we all wonder: For how much longer?
When will the pandemic be over?
Unfortunately, that’s as unanswerable as asking, exactly when, where and how did the pandemic really start?
But the pandemic’s end, or at least that moment when it is perceived to be nearly over, is an intoxicating idea, isn’t it?
Graduating seniors toss their caps in the air in celebration of one chapter ending and a new one beginning.
Wouldn’t it be great to do that with our masks?
“Throwing your mask away (could be) like you’re unshackling yourself from the epidemic, which is over,” Christos Lynteris, a medical anthropologist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, told Discover Magazine.
But how many of us are going to feel secure enough to actually do that?
There is at least something of an answer in looking at what happened after the SARS outbreaks in parts of Asia, including China, in 2003. Although not nearly as deadly as COVID-19 (The World Health Organization reports there were 774 deaths across the globe from SARS during the 2003 outbreak), it, too was a coronavirus.
It made a lasting impression.
“Having traveled abroad, it’s not that unusual to see people wearing masks,” Unger said. “Even apart from COVID, that may become an accepted part of our society.”
Since the SARS outbreaks, “in Asian culture, it’s pretty common to wear a mask a lot,” said Dr. Scott Strome, dean of the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC).
In fact, many Americans first became acquainted with the wearing of masks in public when traveling overseas – or when seeing Asian people who had traveled to America and were on the streets of a congested big city or otherwise forced to be in close contact with large numbers of strangers, such as at an airport or in a subway.
At minimum, the way Americans choose to use masks after the pandemic, or after it has greatly eased, figures to include room for the tactical wearing of facial coverings to try and ensure the strategic aim of avoiding coronaviruses and influenza.
“Planes are the easiest place to catch a germ,” Ewing said, adding that he might always don a mask when flying. “You’re a captive audience.”
Samuel Ewing Jr. (right) and Zuri Elmore, while wearing masks, move boxes of office supplies into the new FedEx Logistics building on Friday, Feb. 12, 2021. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)
Dr. Dorsha James, a University of Memphis graduate who worked as an emergency room physician for more than a decade in Nashville and in 2018 started a telemedicine company, myURGENCYMD, agrees the mask will be an imperative for trips.
“My wife and I travel a lot (sometimes internationally),” she said, “and I want to wear a mask for sure; I’m not saying daily to go to the grocery store.”
Dr. Eugenia South, faculty director of the Urban Health Lab at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, was more emphatic about her loyalty to the mask.
“I honestly don’t think I’ll ever go without a mask at work again,” she told Kaiser Health News. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe doing that.”
Mask-weary but …
Last spring, demand was high, and supply was low – of masks, that is.
And that’s when Rebecca Fava launched a side business: masks by bec, which was dedicated to celebrating Memphis via facial coverings.
“Right after COVID hit, a lot of masks were hard to come by,” said Fava, who also works as an office manager and adjunct history instructor at Southwest Tennessee Community College.
She has filled orders for companies wanting to outfit employees, including Central BBQ and Regional One Health. She has made Grizzlies masks and facial coverings that Shelby Farms Park sells in its gift shop.
“It’s fun for me to work with different companies and play around with art,” Fava said.
Still, she makes this confession: “I don’t love wearing them. But I’m trying to make the best of it.”
That’s true whether creating masks has become your new business venture, or whether you’re someone who wears a mask daily in a medical setting.
“I’m supporting the public health measures in play, but at some point, I want to get back to where we were before, and I want that for everybody,” said Dr. Aric Giddens, president of Memphis Obstetrics & Gynecological Association, P.C.
“I think we’re all having mask fatigue.”
Tired of the mask or no, acceptance of masking has grown over time and partisan divides about masking have lessened, according to Pew Research Center surveys.
Even so, Gov. Bill Lee still refuses to issue a statewide mask mandate for Tennessee. And opposition to mask-wearing now tends to be more passive-aggressive.
“You still see some people defiant,” Dr. James said. “They wear a mask, but they don’t wear it properly. But it definitely has improved.”
Dr. Nick Hysmith, medical director of infection prevention at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, and an assistant professor at UTHSC, says more and more studies are showing that it is “unlikely” someone who has been vaccinated can transmit the virus.
“I think we’re all having mask fatigue.”
Dr. Aric Giddens
president of Memphis Obstetrics & Gynecological Association, P.C.
Potentially, this could clear the path to less mask-wearing. But some in the medical field still believe there is uncertainty.
“What I suspect we’ll learn is that you can’t transmit the virus after being vaccinated,” Hysmith said.
And he believes if that proves accurate, the situations calling for a mask will change: “Once we get to the level of herd immunity, we’ll pull back and say under (more specific) conditions wear a mask.”
Said Giddens: “In hospital settings, I think we’ll be masked all year.”
Everything’s a situation
After the pandemic hit, Memphis 901 FC played seven soccer matches at AutoZone Park – each with less than 1,000 masked fans spaced at least 12 feet apart. The current directives cut the social distancing down to six feet.
The Grizzlies and Tigers have welcomed a limited number of fans back inside FedExForum and, so far, so good.
COVID-19 wiped out the minor league baseball season in 2020, but plans are for the Redbirds to return to action with limited capacity and mandatory facial coverings.
“We’re planning it will be that way,” Unger said, “and if things get better, we’ll adjust.”
The larger question, however, is this: How will people feel about going to a Grizzlies or Tigers game once social distancing restrictions are dropped?
Will everyone feel comfortable attending an indoor sporting event with 18,000 strangers?
And should they?
Hysmith says the elderly, and people with underlying comorbidities, or who are immunosuppressed, should strongly consider wearing a mask in a crowded arena.
It’s also his hope that those people, or anyone who has a concern about being part of such a large crowd indoors, would feel comfortable wearing a mask even if most people are not wearing facial coverings.
“I think the stigma of masking will go away.”
A personal choice
The future question – to mask or not to mask post-pandemic – lingers because no one’s ever going to forget what COVID-19 has done.
Isaac Fung, an epidemiologist at Georgia Southern University, says in that way the SARS experience on the other side of the globe was a solid training ground for people and the decisions they would make about masking.
“They have both the fortune and misfortune of the impact of SARS in 2003,” Fung told Discover Magazine.
True enough, nothing informs decisions like personal experience.
“When you start losing close friends and loved ones, it gets your attention,” Ewing said.
Recently Ewing, who is 61, lost his half-brother – Jessie McDuffey.
“I was in quarantine, had tested positive,” Ewing said, “and wasn’t able to attend the funeral.”
When he’s eligible, Ewing says he will get the vaccine.
“Still, after I get the vaccine, I’ll wear a mask from time to time. And if it’s offensive to someone I’ll take it off.”
Ewing will try to let “common sense” be his guide.
Finally, perhaps we are all more in agreement on the masking issue.
But if we’re honest, we’re all still a little reactive when out in public.
“We are all hypersensitive now and aware of our surroundings,” Unger said.
So, suppose you hear a noise that used to not inspire fear; maybe now your flight response kicks in.
“When somebody around you is sneezing, you’re going to try and get away from them,” James said.
But for the foreseeable future, there probably is no getting away from our masks.
That’s an unhappy thought for local sports fan and Memphis Mayor James Strickland.
“It makes it hard to cheer for the Grizzlies or the Tigers with a mask on,” he said.
The endurance of the mask also would mean continued business for Rebecca Fava. But she’s like the rest of us, a bit mask-miserable at times even as she says it’s difficult to imagine abandoning the mask altogether.
“I think I will carry one with me, just in case,” she said. “Like five years down the road, if somebody’s obviously sick and doesn’t need to be in public.”
Because five years down the road, who knows what’s behind that sneeze or that cough?
Is it a novel coronavirus?
Is it history repeating itself?
Whatever it is, if it’s several years down the road, the mandates likely will be gone.
So, to mask or not mask? We will all ask ourselves that question. We will all arrive at answers in our own way.
“I think it’ll be on you,” Dr. Hysmith said, “to take that responsibility.”
Topics
Charles Ewing Dr. Nick Hysmith Dr. Aric Giddens Dr. Dorsha James Dr. Scott Strome Mayor James Strickland Craig Unger Rebecca FavaDon Wade
Don Wade has been a Memphis journalist since 1998 and he has won awards for both his sports and news/feature writing. He is originally from Kansas City and is married with three sons.
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