Make mask-wearing easy, understood, and expected, write 3 Penn professors.
Hong Kong has so far reported only 4 coronavirus-related deaths, while New York City has reported over 20,000.
Since early February, close to 99% of Hong Kong residents have been wearing masks. But a recent poll shows that only a third of Americans say they always wear a face covering outside the home. Another third sometimes wear a mask in public, and a third never do.
Angela Duckworth, Lyle Ungar, and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, professors at the University of Pennsylvania, see a connection between these 2 sets of facts.
“Universal face mask adoption isn’t the only difference between Hong Kong and the United States, and it’s not a substitute for physical-distancing, hand-washing and other preventive practices,” they wrote on May 27 in The New York Times. “But masks … are widely viewed as critical to stopping the transmission of the novel coronavirus.”
The authors don’t recommend passing laws or punishing people who don’t wear masks. Instead, they suggest making masks:
Easy: “The cheaper and more ubiquitous face masks are, the easier it will be for Americans to get our hands on them, and the more likely we’ll do so and wear them,” they write.
Understood: At the beginning of the pandemic, public health officials told Americans why they shouldn’t wear face masks. Then, those officials changed that recommendation when it became clear people can spread the coronavirus before they have symptoms.
“Since it’s hard for people to update their beliefs once a message has been received, it’s no surprise that misinformation and outdated news continue to ricochet in the echo chambers of social media,” they write, suggesting that leaders must now “supply people with a rationale to change their behavior without looking like a hypocrite.”
Expected: Create a social norm of mask-wearing, not by drawing attention to the lack of compliance, but by emphasizing that the clear trend in this country is toward universal mask-wearing. Encourage high-status role models to post photos about wearing face masks in public. And applaud mask-wearing leaders on both the right and the left.
“Hurrah for Melania Trump posting a photo of herself in a mask, and hurrah, too, for Nancy Pelosi wearing a scarf on the House floor,” they conclude.