Tag Archives: Wearing a mask against Covid-19

Running out of kitchen cabinets in the UK

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 365 [14 March 2021]
Anniversary of self-isolating in Kaliningrad

Congratulations to who, exactly? To WHO? Today marks my first anniversary of self-imposed self-isolation ~ of sorts. Three hundred and sixty-five days of watching where I go and who is standing three hundred and sixty degrees front, sides and back of me. Have I passed the test? And, if so, for whom and for what? And what should my reward be? A diploma in philanthropic consideration for my fellow man (no sexism intended) or a degree with honours in credulous compliance. Let History be my judge! And, of course, be yours as well!

Quite frankly, apart from this milestone, there is not a great deal to report about coronavirus here in Kaliningrad, Russia, certainly not about lockdown as there isn’t one. Everything in Kaliningrad appears to be functioning as normal and the only concession that I can see to coronavirus is the mask-wearing thing. And even then, I have noticed that the percentage of people wearing muzzles, as my wife refers to them, has diminished in the past few weeks.

A mask-wearing enforcement policy continues to operate on public transport, as I witnessed a couple of days ago, when a thoroughly inebriated fellow, who had been celebrating International Women’s Day (no gender discrimination here in Russia!), refused to put on his mask whilst travelling by bus. The young bus conductor did his level best to prosecute the law thanklessly handed down to him, but vodka is a wily opponent and the recalcitrant drunk would eventually fall off at the stop of his choice, still maskless but no less gracious, for even in his triumph of the common man over authority he chose not to stick up an offensive finger but holding up two thumbs saluted International Women’s Day as the bus full of masks roared off.

Running out of kitchen cabinets in the UK

Whilst almost everybody that I have spoken to here in Russia are of one mind: they consider lockdown to be a step too far, I cannot help but feel that Western governments do not approve. Not that anybody here cares a fig about them, but it is a point of interest that whatever the West prescribes the presumption is that the world should follow, even if its example runs counter to the common good. But that is the way that global liberalism works: in their language it is ‘intervention’ but you naughty cynics might want to refer to it as globalist interference. In the UK, it is not enough to say, “We don’t do lockdown!” because you have no choice. And even were you to add, “because there is no real proof that lockdown really works, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it does more harm than good”, you still do lockdown because this, presumably, is the democratic way?

It is the epitome of irony that given the official mortality figures for coronavirus in the UK, lockdown has become, at least for liberals, not just a law but a religion ~ Woe betide anybody who questions its logic or the controversial efficacy of sticking a piece of cloth on your face.

Western authorities are sensitive to the fact that many of the methods chosen to combat coronavirus have no empirical evidence with which to back them up, which accounts for their pique when other countries try different approaches that are no less effective than their draconian measures and arguably equal or better.

Thus, we find in the world’s press recently an unsavoury little piece in which it is claimed that the coronavirus situation here in Kaliningrad is far in excess of what it is claimed to be.

The article to which I refer was published by a media enterprise which checks out on mediabiasfactcheck as ‘Left’:

“These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage liberal causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.”

This is the same media source which suppressed information about the coronavirus situation becoming so appalling in the UK that the Co-op was running short of coffins.

I can report that I have been in touch with one of my brothers, who is a carpenter and cabinet maker by trade, and he has verified this shortage. Apparently, a UK government department asked him to convert the fitted kitchens, which he has been making in his living room, into caskets. Lockdown prohibits him from using his workshop so he has to work from home, and anyway because of lockdown no one has jobs and cannot afford to buy kitchens. As he has not sold anything for 12 months, he is only too keen to comply, but I am yet to be convinced that a send-off in a converted kitchen cupboard made from MDF complete with plastic handles will ever catch on. No doubt we shall hear more in due course from the reliable leftist media source that I mention in this article. (I have withheld the name of the media outlet so as to protect the gullible.)

These are the coronavirus case figures for Kaliningrad, 14 March 2021, since the beginning of the pandemic*:
29,294 cases of coronavirus identified in the region
26,863 people have recovered
328 deaths.

*Source: https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/94160-za-sutki-v-kaliningradskoj-oblasti-ot-koronavirusa-umerli-pyat-pacientov [accessed 14 March 2021]

Feature image attribution: Lynn Greyling. https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=84918&picture=cupboard-with-old-iron-amp-kettles

Coronavirus Truth or Trickery Trick or Treat?

We all know a lot less than we think we knew when all this started

Published: 29 December 2020

So, here we are, coming to the end of the first year of the Coronavirus Age and my first 9 months of being a coronavirus self-isolator. Time for reflection, or, as Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise the comedians used to say, “What do you think of it so far?”

In 1992 the alternative rock group REM produced a hit record the chorus of which went, “If you believed they put a man on the moon … If you believe there’s nothing up his sleeve, then nothing is cool.”

The question today is ‘Do you believe that lockdowns, mask-wearing, social distancing and a worldwide coercive mass vaccination programme using vaccines which scientists and public health officials admit have been fast-tracked into existence and therefore, one presumes, not as rigorously tested as they would normally be, are manifestations of global humanitarianism or a totalitarian globalist agenda in which economic reset and culling the world’s population are two primary objectives? And apropos of this, do you believe that the misinformation and disinformation at the centre of public confusion is just a byproduct of the gabbling information age in which we live, the bungling inefficiency of the ruling elites or a carefully and meticulously orchestrated web of deceit and deception.

Take my word for it: I don’t know.

But there is no doubt that the traction gained by conspiracy theories is beginning to make them look and sound a lot less infeasible than the obfuscating quagmire into which the official narrative, in its failure to provide conclusive answers or even address people’s fears, sinks a little every day.

So, this is where I come to my What Do You Make About That? section ~ where I air alternative views to those presented in the authoritative script and leave you to make your own minds up: ‘Trick or Treat’?

Coronavirus Truth or Trickery Trick or Treat?

In this video clip taken from the Brexit party’s Facebook page we learn that the Nightingale Hospital at the ExCel Centre in London has disappeared. It has been dismantled, which is a mite odd as we are told that London is supposedly locked down tight, sinking into the abyss of yet another onslaught of virus virulence and, moreover, threatened by a mutated strain of Covid-19.

This clip is taken from www.bitchute.com {link inactive as of 12/04/2022} an alternative social media platform to Facebook. It sees controversial investigative journalist Gemma O’Doherty ‘proving’ that proof exists that coronavirus does not ~ in the most official sense ~ and, it would seem, that the efficacy of every preventative measure and precaution taken to limit the spread of this ‘non-existent’ disease has no basis in fact.

Here is a Gemma O’Doherty’ quote: “As part of our legal action we had been demanding the evidence that this virus actually exists [as well as] evidence that lockdowns actually have any impact on the spread of viruses; that facemasks are safe, and do deter the spread of viruses – They don’t. No such studies exist; that social distancing is based in science – It isn’t. it’s made up; that contact tracing has any bearing on the spread of a virus – of course it doesn’t. This organisation here – is making it up as they go along.” — Gemma O’Doherty

Put like that, it’s a Buggeroota to be sure!

Here is a piece that was aired via Russia’s RT. RT is the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel which brings the Russian view on global news.’ There are thousands of Covid strains, so this new scare is NOT a big deal, but politicians just love their new authoritarianism — RT Op-ed.’

The article which claims that the British government ‘know what they are doing’ ~ “One should be wary of caricaturing Boris Johnson and the rest of his cronies perpetrating this crime on the people as ‘Grinches’. They are nothing so amusing or cuddly. They are far, far worse than that, and make no mistake about it, they know full well what they are doing.” ~ is strangely reassuring for, from the average Britisher’s viewpoint, they don’t.

So, here we are, coming to the end of the first year of the Coronavirus Age. Whether you believe that what is happening in response to coronavirus is all part of a well-orchestrated plan by the usual neoliberal suspects or just another example of where are the world leaders we used to have when you need them, one thing is universally certain, we will all be glad to see the arse of 2020 well and truly booted out. But, as one life and soul of the party said to me recently, do you really think that things are going to get better in 2001?

That is a tough one to be sure. If 2020 was the year in which a new disease was unleashed on us, and the year when all respect and trust in authority and the media died, 2021 looks set to become the year in which Big Pharma faces its greatest test of veracity and confidence since Charles Forde & Co beguiled us into believing that Bile Beans cured everything.

In 1979, The Police, no, not those ones who are told to look the other way when statues are being defaced and to arrest people for not eating Christmas dinner in a small room papered with old copies of The Independent (They don’t produce a print version anymore, do they. I wonder what their readers do for toilet paper?) —The Police rock group released a record called ‘Message in a Bottle’. Perhaps, this is where the answer lies, and we will not know the truth for certain until it comes rolling in on the tide of time.

In the meantime, to offset allegations of partisanship on my part to the anti-vaxxers cause, perpetual seekers of reassurance might do worse than to read this article: Covid-19 vaccines are safe. That doesn’t mean no side effects – STAT (statnews.com).

You pays your money and you takes your choice …

Coronavirus Truth or Trickery: a Message in a Bottle

(Image credit: Photo via <a href=”https://www.goodfreephotos.com/”>Good Free Photos</a>)

Why wearing a mask is different from wearing pants

Wearing a mask is like wearing pants. Really?

Published: 24 November 2020 ~ Why wearing a mask is different from wearing pants

Of all things that are mysterious and confusing about coronavirus, the salient example is mask wearing, or rather the contentious issue of mandatory mask wearing.

Enter Bill Gates. Bill would seem to be an ardent mask-wearing supporter, so much so that he has difficulty in comprehending why anyone should object to wearing a mask. Peeping out into our world from behind his very large wallet, nothing could be more natural or normal to Bill than slinging a piece of fabric about one’s nose and mouth. His is so convinced about the normality inherent in this practice that he considers the psychology of anti-maskers ‘weird’ and asks “I mean, what are these, like, nudists?” Then goes on to make a bizarre comparison between wearing masks and wearing pants: “We ask you to wear pants and, you know, no American says — or very few Americans say — that that’s, like, some terrible thing.” {source: www.wionews.com} [29/03/24 Link to this page no longer exists]

You see, Bill, my old mate, the thing is that this comparison is not really a valid one. I don’t know where you wear your pants, but most people wear them around their arse, and have been doing so for years. There are distinct convenience and comfort factors in pants-wearing that do not readily relate to the experience of wearing face masks.

For one, a bandage wrapped around your nose and mouth tends to get in the way of that all-important function of breathing, whereas pants do not, unless, of course, you are wearing them over your head ~ Bill?

Where Bill wears his pants or mask is entirely up to him. Correction, where he wears his pants is entirely up to him; I forgot for a moment that mask wearing is obligatory.

It was not always this way.

Time was once, and recently, although it seems like an age away, when if you were to wear a mask in public you would be guaranteed to excite a certain degree of suspicion. Indeed, before we were forced to do otherwise the only people wearing masks, discounting for the moment those who have a penchant for PVC or leather, were muggers and bank robbers. In the bad old pre-mask days, shops, banks and government offices would not insist that you wear a mask, they would insist that you remove it! How times change ~ and suddenly!

Fauci claimed that “wearing a mask, keeping a distance, avoiding crowds, being outdoors as much as you possibly can – weather permitted – and washing your hands” are the defining ways for one to return to the normal world’. {source: wionews.com ¹} A nice sentence that begs a one-word response. When?

When, Mr Fauci, when?

The mask is the single most potent reminder that normality has gone, and its odiousness is this respect has not been helped any by suggestions that mask wearing may be with us forever. So, for the time being at least (let us be optimistic), the mask is the visual signal, the day-by-day reminder of our altered state of reality ~ the corporate logo of the so-called New Normal.

Some cynics believe that this visual statement, the compliance it represents and the fear it engenders, is an essential weapon in the psychological arsenal of governments and Big Pharma intent on ensuring the maximum uptake of their rushed and suspect vaccine products. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and where there are millions, billions of people, purchasing cart loads of vaccines, not to mention vitamin pills and, lest we forget (how could we?), masks, there is money to be made. Lots.

But let’s not be trite, here. A few months back there were a number of articles written by medical and health specialists postulating that not only are masks useless in the fight against coronavirus but that they can actually contribute to your chances of catching it. The out and out criticism was that wearing a mask for virus prevention was like wearing string underpants to stop a pea. Here we go again, Bill?

The case against mask wearing has since swung to wearing masks correctly, ie moulded around the facial contours, never touched by hand, changed periodically ~ at least every two hours ~ not placed in one’s pocket, not washed and not re-used. An idealistic scenario unlikely to be achieved when the majority of mask wearers do not seem capable of rising to the challenge of the basic principles of how to wear a mask.

How many mask wearers have you clocked wearing their masks correctly? Sitting baggy, possibly like Bill’s pants (who knows?), swinging from the ears, acting as a chin cuff and, the old favourite, mouth gagged, snout out ~ this is how they are worn.

Whenever I see someone wearing their mask like this, as in the last and most popular example, and, of course, I do, because my wife is one such transgressor (she refers to masks as ‘muzzles’), I am reminded of something I saw on Facebook: two drawings, with captions. The first caption read, ‘Wearing your mask like this …’ (there then followed a drawing of someone wearing a mask with their nose sticking out above it) “is as silly as wearing your underpants like this …” (there then followed an image of a pair of Y-fronts pulled halfway up with a willy hung over the waistband). “That’s funny,” I thought, “doesn’t everyone wear their Y-fronts like this?”

Bill?

And yet the risk of catching coronavirus by improper face mask wearing is possibly not so high as the risk that emanates from face mask fiddling. You see, wearing a chunk of cloth over your nose and mouth is devilishly uncomfortable. After a while it can make your face hot and sweaty, and it can also make you itch. OK, so you can suffer the same inconvenience should you be wearing the wrong kind of pants, but there is a subtle difference. In adjusting your mask and scratching your itch, you generally touch your face and possibly, inadvertently, your mouth, nose and eyes, which is precisely what you are told that you must not do if you do not want to catch coronavirus.

But what about the altruistic argument, the one that goes that mask wearing significantly reduces the risk of passing coronavirus onto someone else, especially if you happen to be an asymptomatic spreader? In the first instance, look no further for the answer in Bill’s string underpants and their pea-stopping potential ~ catching coronavirus is a two-way process: what gets in must get out. And this also applies to the mysterious, unproven asymptomatic as much as it does to the snotty-nosed cougher.

So, extrapolating what we know already about masks from the lack of evidence placed before us, what we can say irrefutably is that no one knows. And this is where we are at, at the moment: mask wearing will protect you from catching coronavirus, mask wearing will increase your chances of catching coronavirus; mask wearing is a temporary measure, mask wearing is here forever. And this ambiguity rolls over into other things, such as: the vaccine is coming, but no one knows when; the vaccine is a game changer, but what game and whose? The vaccine will not be the 100% solution that people have been led to believe: it may work for some and not for others; it may not work at all; it may have serious contraindications; it may have built-in lethal implications ~well, let’s don’t go there for the moment. And what about lockdown? For some it is the bib and tucker; for others it is Bill Gate’s underpants. There is a lot of hot air about it, but no hard evidence to support it, so to speak.

In fact, all that we can say with any degree of certainty about coronavirus, from what we have been fed, is that your guess is as good as mine.

What we can say, getting back to masks, is that generally speaking, the general public are not comfortable wearing them. There is a convincing argument that politicians and big neoliberal corporate globalists have no problem with it as they never show their true face anyway, but for the many, as distinct from the few, normal human contact is not traditionally mask to mask, it is traditionally face to face.

So, to summarise, masks are uncomfortable, they make breathing, one of the main functioning processes of the body difficult and speaking problematic, symbolically they are a constant reminder of a deviant reality, and, at worst, they could actually create the environment for catching the very disease which they purport to prevent.

Whatever one’s feeling about masks, the inescapable fact is that ultimately, human visual contact and human communication is a face-to-face transaction, not a mask-to-mask one, since full-time mask wearing is as alien as it is alienating.

But I should not worry about it too much, Bill, the only confusion you seem to be suffering from is a pants and mask one, and whichever it is and wherever you wear them, it does not seem to have affected you any, as you still seem perfectly capable of talking out of yours.

Why wearing a mask is different from wearing pants — **NOW, WHERE DID I PUT THAT MASK?**

(Image attribution: https://freesvg.org/johnny-automatic-head-up-ass)

Source:
1. https://www.wionews.com/world/bill-gates-wonders-whether-anti-maskers-are-nudists-and-why-they-wont-wear-masks-343913

😉Coronavirus Language & the Mask Argument

Coronavirus Language & the Mask Argument

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 209 [9 October 2020]

Published: 11 October 2020

Coronavirus chaos has strengthened its grip on the UK, the focus having now switched away from London to the north of the country. There are so many different ideas, protocols and strategies proposed for or operating in so many different regions and towns that the British public have been propelled into a second wave of terminal confusion. ‘Traffic lights’, three-tier systems, pub curfews, the Rule of Six, social distancing, lockdown ~ this lexical explosion, perpetrated by political pundits and lobbed like grenades into the public arena by hack journalists, has not, as linguists would have us believe, helped a beleaguered public to communicate better the altered shape of their lives and collective state of mind as much as it has routed common sense.

Coronavirus language & the mask argument

The new speak is bandied around as something positive given to us by the New Normal in return for stealing our lives. It is a poor substitute, thrilling perhaps for linguists and for those who devote their lives to the pursuit of adding slang to dictionaries, but for the humble man on the street (now locked down in his home), it is just so much unnecessary verbiage.

As I sit here in Kaliningrad ~ sometimes Königsberg ~ I have, by slow and calculated degrees, weened myself off my daily habit of consulting UK Google News, because (a) it is depressing and (b) after five minutes of reading, I feel as if I am drowning in alphabetti spaghetti.

Alphabetti spaghetti

There are no such buzzwords in Kaliningrad as there are in the UK, not even, or very rarely, a mention of ‘second wave’, but the protection that this offers us from the contagion of new speak and from the ill-thought-through strategies, U-turns and excuses around which in the UK these catch-all words revolve, does not, as with the rest of the infected world, extend immunity to the real problem, coronavirus, or provide us with a way back to the life we have lost and for which we grieve.

I suppose that in the last analysis as long as you remember to step carefully through the media spaghetti, the semantics are irrelevant; they ‘don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world’; it is simply a case of whether or not you like your beans spiced or served as they come without relish.

Coronavirus language & the mask argument

Today, for example (9 October 2020), without a lot of fuss, I learn from consulting Kaliningrad news that 67 new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed, bringing the total number of infected to 4,970 in this region. A total of 3,521 people have recovered, and the total number of deaths since the onset of the pandemic stands at 89¹.

Whilst this should come as no surprise to anybody, as governments around the world, the WHO, scientists and health practitioners have been telling us all along to regard summer as little more than a seasonal respite, because this virus, like most respiratory viruses, favours a romp in the autumn and winter months, some critics here have inferred that a contributory factor to the increased number of Covid-19 cases has been “a decrease in the vigilance of the population”².

This mainly, but non-specifically, I assume refers to the controversial subject of mask-wearing in confined public spaces. It is quite astonishing that 12 months into the pandemic, the world’s health gurus, scientists, governments and the public are still at serious odds about how efficacious face masks are as a preventative measure against Covid-19, and that this one issue alone illustrates not only how polarised opinion has become on how best to protect oneself against the virus but also serves to remind us of how fallible our knowledge is and how vulnerable we are when the science community on which we rely are unable to reach consensus on something so fundamental.

In the UK, here and elsewhere in the Covid-19 world, the division and opposition between maskers and anti-maskers defines the ambiguities of the ‘New Normal’ as well as its extremes, and allegiance and loyalty to one or the other is breeding the kind of resentment and partisan hostility usually reserved for, as Leonard Cohen describes it, “the war between the black and white and … left and right”, not to mention the rancour between the leave and remain camps of Brexit. Indeed, the line drawn in the sand between pro- and anti-maskers is as deep as any encountered and has a universal reach.

Coronavirus language & the mask argument

In Kaliningrad to mask or not to mask has led to altercations on public transport and recently, it was reported, that a fight broke out on a bus between a pro-masker and an anti-masker³. There is no doubt that throughout the infected world feelings are running high, but is this the result of fear or bigotry, frustration, ignorance or ambiguity, or a little bit of everything and a little more besides? Whatever is stoking it, as with all last stands on the moral high ground, since both opposing parties are convinced that the cause which they espouse has right upon its side, unless someone steps up to the plate and passes final judgement on the mask vs no mask case, the heat can only go up and the situation can only deteriorate.

As with all arguments of this nature ~ inconclusive ones ~ there is no flexibility, no ground to give. The pro-maskers believe unquestionably that face masks can prevent or at least protect against the spread of the disease, whilst the anti-maskers argue that not only are masks ineffective but that wearing them incorrectly can actually increase one’s chances of catching coronavirus, particularly if masks are carried, handled and worn in ways that contradict and confound the science by which their usefulness, and by default their limitations, are defined.

Consider the following, which was emailed to the comments section of the article cited above³ [Note that this has been reproduced verbatim using an automated translation service]:

‘Who among those who like to wear masks observes these rules? How to Wear a Medical Mask: Important Recommendations A disposable medical mask is only used once. The mask is placed on the face so that it covers the nose, mouth and chin. If the mask has strings, they must be tied tightly. If a plastic fastener is sewn into the mask in the area of the nose, it is tightly fitted with your fingers to the bridge of the nose. Many masks have special folds. They are unfolded to give the garment a more functional shape for a snug fit to the face. While wearing the mask, it is not recommended to touch its protective field with your hands. After touching the mask, hands are washed with soap and then treated with a special antiseptic. It is better not to take breaks in the process of wearing the mask: after removing the product from the face, a person, as a rule, touches it with his hands, shifts to the chin and neck, or even puts it in his pocket, and this is strictly prohibited. Dispose of the wet mask immediately and put on another, dry and clean. On average, the medical mask is changed every 2 hours. Removing the used mask, you must not touch the protective layer of the product, where pathogens have already accumulated. The mask is gently pulled off the face by grasping the ear loops or strings. Knowing how to properly wear a medical face mask is very important. Otherwise, the protective effect of the product will be minimized, and the risk of “catching” the virus, on the contrary, increases significantly.’

In the early days of coronavirus a friend of ours, who, incidentally, is a confirmed anti-masker who wears a mask begrudgingly, reminded someone on public transport that they were not wearing a mask. She was promptly informed by the non-mask wearer that there was no need for her to wear a mask because she was not infected. Our friend replied, that she was not thinking of her infecting others but being infected herself. When the bus conductress came along, who also was not wearing a mask, our friend asked if she challenged passengers who were not wearing masks and asked them to put them on. She replied: “Of course not!”

Two week ago I travelled by tram across the city, whereupon I observed some people wearing masks and some not. My maths have always left a lot to be desired, but in my humble opinion I would estimate that the split was equal at 50:50. In the article quoted above³, interviews with public transport staff conclude that since the onset of coronavirus and the early days of the mask-wearing rule the uptake has improved and is improving, even if the grumbling has not.

Coronavirus language & the mask argument

And what about me? For my own part, I am a reformed anti-masker/reluctant masker, but my gut feeling echoes the sentiments of the commentator whose words I quoted earlier in this post, namely that knowledge of and adherence to the art and science of mask wearing is, firstly, not well understood, and secondly, even if it was, is difficult if not impossible to transact under normal societal conditions. And under New Normal conditions? Well, I will try to answer that when somebody tells me in plain English or in simple Russian what the New Normal is.

In the meantime, no more spaghetti for me, thanks, I have signed myself up for a detox diet.

How do you spell ‘NOT SURE’? Coronavirus Language & the Mask Argument
(*Photo credit)

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are exactly that, opinions. The current rules, as I understand them, are that the wearing of masks is mandatory on public transport and in other enclosed public places, ie shops, chemists, etc …

References
1. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/91655-za-sutki-v-kaliningradskoj-oblasti-podtverdili-67-sluchaev-koronavirusa
2. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/91641-kravchenko-lichno-ya-ne-predpolagal-takogo-stremitelnogo-rosta-chisla-zabolevshih-koronavirusom
3. https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/91610-potasovki-rugan-i-smirenie-kak-v-transporte-kaliningrada-boryutsya-s-narushitelyami-masochnogo-rezhima

*(Photo credit: bernswaelz (pixabay.com) https://www.needpix.com/photo/download/531227/letters-noodles-food-pasta-free-pictures-free-photos-free-images-royalty-free-free-illustrations)

Covid-19 Mask Parade

The Masked Man of Coronavirus

Published: 20 May 2020

The day after I posted my last Diary of a Self-isolator article on the coronavirus situation, wearing a mask in public places, including on the street, became part of what the Brits would call ‘The New Normal’ here in Russia’s Kaliningrad region. ⁺An online news report predicted today that the mask regime would be ‘with us for a long time’, which is bad news for those of us who have difficulty in wearing them. Nevertheless, rules are rules and when we went shopping on Sunday we emerged on the street looking like a pair of dentists hunting down an escaped patient, or, possibly, a pair of escaped dentists wanted for mask wearing when it did not really suit us.

In the short walk from our house to the small, but diversely stocked, shopping precinct at the end of the road, I idled away my new-found inability to breathe very well by playing ‘spot the masks in Kaliningrad’.

Now, I am not one to tell tales out of school, but in my estimation I would say there was a 50:50 split on those conforming to the new mask-wearing rule and those who could not, but, moving swiftly on ~ and my word don’t we, these days ~ I turned my face-covered attention to the kind of masks that people were wearing in an attempt to define which type of mask was the Kaliningradian’s mask of choice.

Mick Hart and his wife, Olga, were wearing the lightweight, light-blue coloured thin cotton masks of pleated design, as worn widely by members of the medical profession. Please be assured that this is no endorsement of their efficacy, and neither is it intended to be. The problem inherent in universal mask-wearing is that it does not take long before demand outstrips supply, restricting personal choice to availability rather than comfort-fit or cosmetics.

This factor would account for the swerving variation in masks evident, but a nervous breakdown (that is to say, a breakdown made nervously as I stood in the street observing) enabled me to categorise mask-type together with wearing incidence thus:

Incidence of mask-wearing:

Lightweight, blue pleated masks: 20%

Thick linen black masks: 60%

Homemade masks: 1%

Standard builder’s dust masks: 12%

Superior builder’s dust masks: 7%

Wearing of masks by type

Proper job ~ over mouth and nose: 40%

Loose and baggy like an old pair of pants (please note the use of the word like): 5%

Nose poking out over the top: 5%

Clipped under the chin ready for erection on sight of authorities: 50%

Covid-19 Mask Parade

It was whilst I was standing outside the chemists in a mask-observant mood that, making allowances for the different types of mask identified here, I wondered how long it would be, taking into account that enforced mask-wearing was not likely to go away anytime soon, some budding entrepreneur would cash in and clean up on the market for novelty masks. Who would be the first, I pondered, to register The Novelty Mask Emporium, a company devoted to the design, production and distribution of imaginatively made masks, three or four different types mass produced and styled in such a way as to steer your mind away from the serious reason for wearing them.

For example, for the animal lovers you could have one shaped like a cats face with a long pair of whiskers sticking out on either side; for the ‘life on the ocean waves’ brigade, one shaped like the bow of a boat with some waves painted around the chin piece; and for those who have benefitted from too much plastic surgery and/or Botox one designed like the back of a bus.

You could design the masks in series, and make a ‘guess who’ or ‘guess what’ game of it. For example, you could have the ‘Famous Faces Series’, a mask limited to the mouth and nose of famous people, such as the mouth and nose of Boris Johnson, Donald Trump or, for those with long memories, Tom Jones. To appeal to and capture the errant youth market, you would do far worse than have a series of features built around rappers and hip-hoppers. Each mask could come complete with a free, imitation chunky gold necklace and you could call the series ‘Innit’. There really is no end to the possibilities; the sky’s the limit ~ a mask decorated with craters like the moon, which turn out to be potholes in a road near Scunthorpe, just to appease the conspiracy theorists. Rude masks would be very much in demand, especially in the UK, and masks of Obama’s bum, for example, or shaped like genitalia would be bound to command high prices.

At the other end of the market, above the belt line and sold exclusively in places like Bond Street and London’s Saville Row, upmarket clientele could eschew the off-the-peg option for a tailor-made mask, personally designed according to their own design criteria and made to measure to fit one’s facial contours.

Covid-19 Mask Parade

The biggest bucks lie in one of two directions: (1) Designing a novelty mask and getting it wrapped around the kisser of some celeb or other, particularly one which will appeal to the open credit card mentality of the young; (2) Having your mask operation endorsed by Royal Warrant, ie Mask Suppliers to Her Majesty the Queen of England or Chancellor Merkel of Germany (not quite sure about the latter).

For those of us who are good with our hands and have not yet been arrested for it, the homemade customised option could very well lead to an international coronavirus mask competition, similar in form and cornicity to the long-running out-of-steam Eurovision Song Contest or EU Pong Contest (this one has always smelt a bit fishy). For inspiration, ‘make do and mend’ mask artists would be advised to seek inspiration from the saviours of America ~ no, definitely not the Hilary Clinton mask ~ I mean those worn by comic strip superheroes ~Batman, Spiderman, Bat-Other, Spider-It et al.

For lovers of the Golden Days of Hollywood, there’s your Lone Ranger and Mask of Zorro. OK their masks were just pieces of paper with eye holes cut into them, specifically designed so that when worn even people who have never met you before will recognise you instantly, but they are just as good as any mask if you only wear them under your chin.

We won’t go into the other kinds of mask available as we run the risk of straying inadvertently into the realm of bank heists and BDSM parties (mainly dungeon oriented now on account of the 2 metre distancing rule ~ see my article on Copulating with Coronavirus whilst observing the 2 metre rule [by the way, claiming that the metric system confuses you, as you thought that 2 metres is the same as 2 inches is no defence, and anything else is just boasting].

If you want a lover
I’ll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I’ll wear a mask for you

~ Leonard Cohen

From a personal standpoint, which is a masculine one with no hands on hips allowed, for the well-turned out gentleman, the gentleman of taste and decorum, there is the all-important question of how to wear a mask and still maintain one’s sartorial elegance.

No matter how assertively the mask argument is made in the interests of self-preservation, one is forced to acknowledge that a piece of cloth or moulded chunk of white synthetic material resembling a polystyrene burger box planted on your face is by no means a flattering accessory to either member of sex ~ or the many things in between. And when you have a certain je ne sais quoi reputation concerning standards and manner of dress, well, I ask you, wearing a mask indeed!

In conclusion (or even collusion)

The benefits and disadvantages of wearing a mask in the new Coronavirus Age is one of those hotly debated issues which, like mediocre pop music does not look likely to be resolved in the short-to-medium term, but as Hope Not Hate, who have never got it right, might say, masks come in all shapes and sizes, they do not have to be homogeneous. Masks can be as diverse as fantasy, multicoloured or as black as your hat. Just open the borders of your mind ~ make them gay and wear them with pride.