Please ignore the Tories and put on a mask

I hate wearing one. I hate it – but we put them on for the good of those around you, writes Katy Brand

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the Conservatives won’t start wearing masks in the Commons because they ‘know each other’ (AFP via Getty)

There are arseholes in every country; it’s true. It’s just that in many other countries the arseholes appear to be content to at least wear a mask. For some reason in the UK, and more specifically in England, mask-wearing has become a highly contentious issue.

The US also has its problems in this regard. But for most of the rest of Europe, even though there have been lockdown protests all over the continent, people broadly put their masks on without complaint in shops, restaurants and theatres or on buses, trains and in taxis.

In England, masks have somehow become something political, a dividing line resulting in harassment towards those who still choose to wear one. Why this is, I do not know. It doesn’t feel like there is much time to analyse it right now because the main focus needs to be on simply getting as many people to wear a mask as possible in enclosed spaces.

Yesterday there were fewer Covid cases in the whole of the EU combined than there were in the UK. This is not magic; it’s not mysterious, and masks are a part of that. So is a comprehensive vaccine passport scheme to gain access to any indoor space, but that feels a long way off and maybe impossible. So for now, it must be masks.

I hate wearing a mask. I hate it. The combination of glue and the echoes of whatever I have recently eaten blowing warmly back into my nasal cavity is not pleasant. I now carry a small toothbrush with me and a pack of chewing gum so that if I have to eat on the go and then travel I can at least make my immediate environment (AKA my own face and skin) a little fresher. The sweat that gathers around my upper lip and chin is not a nice sensation, and I have surreptitiously had to wipe it away with a tissue on the tube on several occasions. Yuck.

So yes, I know why some people don’t like them. I get it 100 per cent – they are claustrophobic and damp which may be fine for a camping holiday, but not in everyday life. The truth is they work to protect against Covid-19 so I wear one because I have had the virus once, suffered for some months, and don’t want to get it again or pass it on to anyone else.

You wear a seatbelt, you wear a condom – so wear a mask. Ignore the Tories and put one on.