Before we descend into too great a farce, I have always understood that the eponymous “Darwin Awards” are for those people who place their own safety in peril, thus possibly perishing and therefore failing to contribute to human evolution (hence the name). It is widely accepted that face coverings provide no protection for the wearer so the evolutionary deficit will be visited on those who the wearer (allegedly) fails to protect, not on the wearer himself.
But enough fictitious nonsense (amusing as it is) and back to my point. It was this that stood out for me:
“...but when I get that close to people I put on a mask.”
It paints for me a picture of people placing masks on themselves every time they come within a few feet of each other for a few moments. It is quite clear from the WHO’s guidance that momentary contact closer than 2m poses no particular risk that can be mitigated by the parties wearing face coverings. That’s why when I see somebody say “when I get that close to people I put on a mask” it makes me wonder whether they’ve really thought about what they are doing.
I won’t go into the wider variety of issues the WHO guidance raises including their conclusions that there is no evidence to suggest that widespread wearing of face coverings by the public in general provides much in the way of protection or the very real danger of self-contamination, especially among people who replace and remove masks frequently. I’ll leave others to read up on that before we compile the short list for this year’s Darwin Award entries.