COVID Masks Were Intended To Become Normal 'Social Practice'

Thankfully, after years of being forced into wearing masks in a pointless, failed attempt to control the spread of the coronavirus, most of the country and the world has returned to normalcy. 

Masks don't work as source control, to prevent infections, to stop transmission at a community level, or even when worn by doctors to prevent post-operation infections. Study after study has confirmed it, and years of population-wide experiments during the pandemic solidified it.

But where masks can be effective is by creating an atmosphere of fear, compliance, panic, and unearned virtue. Which is why they became so popular and ubiquitous among a certain subset of people, whose internal value is wrapped up in believing in unjustified superiority based on listening to ideological "experts."

READ: Yes, COVID Extremists Are Still Trying To Force Kids To Wear Masks

The years of mandates and mask wearing had a limitless list of harms and negative outcomes, from stunted childhood development to decreasing social cohesion. And if the "experts" had their way, masks were to become "normal social practice," something that continued forever. In fact, we don't even have to guess their intention. They wrote about it.

People wearing facemasks walk at the Griffith Observatory with a view of the Hollywood sign at the start of Memorial Day holiday weekend amid the novel coronavirus pandemic in Los Angeles on May 22, 2020. (Photo by Apu GOMES / AFP) (Photo by APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images)

Yes, People Wanted Masks To Become Permanent Fixtures

An article published in the British Medical Journal by authors Helene-Mari van der Westhuizen, and professor Trisha Greenhalgh, from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Services at Oxford University, advocated for masking to become a social norm through enhanced propaganda and inaccurate messaging re-framed to target susceptible audiences.

"Covering the mouth and nose is a public health measure designed to capture respiratory droplets from the wearer (who may not have symptoms) to reduce transmission of respiratory infections," they write. "Debates about whether face coverings should be used have framed them largely as a medical intervention with benefits and harms. Although the majority of countries and public health agencies now recommend or mandate face coverings against covid-19, viewing face coverings through a medical narrative still dominates."

Acting as though masking is a "medical intervention," the argument goes, undermines the desire to push everyone to wear masks. Instead of focusing on "benefits and harms," communicators should target "social and cultural practices" to ensure that "new norms" are created around permanent masking.

"For successful uptake," they say, "such interventions need to be grounded in the social and cultural practices and realities of affected communities, and campaigns should not only inform, but also work to shape new sociocultural norms."

How would they accomplish this mission? By choosing different language when trying to sell masks to the public. They even helpfully provided a table of suggested language that would more effectively convince people to make masking a new societal and sociocultural norm.

One goal is to emphasize the "Population benefit" of masks, that they would reduce the "overall level of transmission on population level." Ignoring, of course, that masks conclusively failed to reduce any level of transmission.

Other examples include trying to turn the public into mask evangelicals for friends and family members. Then there's "acceptability," and hilariously, attempts to claim that reusable masks would promote "sustainability."

As an example of a successful propaganda campaign, the writers reference the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic infamously became the symbol of masking in the early part of the pandemic. A USA Today article from July 2020 was headlined: "Czech Republic has lifesaving COVID-19 lesson for America: Wear a face mask."

The URL and title is "How the Czech Republic beat COVID: require everyone to wear fear masks." These writers concur, saying that the country successfully convinced the public to wear masks by reshaping "societal norms around the acceptability of wearing a face covering in public."

"In the Czech Republic, a community led #Masks4All advocacy campaign rapidly reshaped societal norms around the acceptability of wearing a face covering in public," the letter explains. "'Mask trees' were used to distribute face coverings, and communities coordinated creating face coverings for each other. Social media were used to share messaging about making them at home, to show celebrity support for the campaign, to distribute songs to encourage their use, and to add humour through photos of public statues wearing face coverings. This created a movement, which prompted others to imitate this behaviour and follow the example. #Masks4All slogans such as ‘keep your droplets to yourself’ and ‘my mask protects you, your mask protects me’ appealed to a shared set of social values."

This dystopian, agenda-driven policy and promotional tool was effective in making masking part of the new normal, they believed. And it helped the Czech Republic beat COVID.

Except, the authors of both the USA Today article and this BMJ letter never followed up on what happened later on in the pandemic in the Czech Republic. Some did though. 

Within a matter of weeks after being praised for masking and making it a new "social norm," and with a mask mandate in place, the Czech Republic saw cases skyrocket to record highs. Then, with continued masking, saw more record-breaking case rates later on. At one point, the Czech Republic had the highest confirmed case rate on earth. They were at the top in cumulative death rates as well. Not once did any of these authors correct their original statements or admit they were wrong.

This is what "experts" advocated for: making an ineffective, harmful policy a new "social practice" because it made them feel like a good, compliant person. They wanted others to make masking a permanent part of every day life. They refused to accept that science, data, and evidence had already demonstrated they don't work. They wanted governments to mislead the public in order to increase compliance. And for a percentage of the population, it worked. To the point where some continue to wear masks in 2025. 

If public health wants to understand why it lost the trust of the people it's supposed to serve, this letter is the perfect example. Compliance over communication. Unearned superiority over science. And virtue over evidence.