We’re Still Hunkering Down in the Bunker, But Nobody Quite Knows Why

A large part of Europe and North America has given up on community masking, or at least decided it’s just not worth it anymore. England, Ireland, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and numerous American and Canadian states that had mask mandates in place for part of the pandemic brushed them aside in recent months, and moved on.

The limited evidence for the efficacy of community masking, which is, according to most respected meta-studies, “weak to moderate” and “inconclusive,” was used to justify mask mandates just in case they worked, early on in the pandemic, but when it emerged that the latest variant of Covid was about as lethal as a common flu, and it became clear that there were high levels of immunity already built up in the community, many governments finally decided to ditch the mask.

Life went on. Omicron swept through unmasked societies, just as it had swept through masked societies, but hospitals were not overwhelmed.

Of course, we already knew that masks made little difference to the overall spread of Covid-19, since, besides the weak scientific support for indiscriminate community masking, societies not in the habit of masking, such as Sweden, did not suffer a worse disease burden than many masked regions, such as Spain, France, England, and Belgium, while in the United States, unmasked Florida fared no worse than masked California.

A large part of Europe and North America is now unmasked, and has been for many weeks, and in some cases, months. We are not hearing reports of Covid patients saturating their hospitals or paralyzing their health systems. We are not seeing worse health outcomes in places that have ditched the mask than places with strict mask rules still in force.

One of the corners of the world in which indoor masking is still legally mandated is Spain, where I live.

Cross the border into France, and there is no requirement to wear a mask. Hop on a plane to England, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, or Finland, and you can ditch the mask, no questions asked. But in Spain, people are still clinging to the mask as if it were some sort of infallible good luck charm.