Why Don't Americans Wear Masks

In October, the epidemic broke out in the United States for more than half a year. There were more than 7.49 million new coronavirus infections and more than 210000 deaths

But Americans are still bickering over masks and even taking to the streets. No matter the presidential election rally or the first round of presidential candidates' TV debates, almost no masks were worn. Masks are an important symbol of political differences in the United States in 2020 and an important topic in the general election campaign.

On September 12, 2020, trump held a campaign rally on the tarmac of an airport in Minden, Nevada, with few people wearing masks.

There may be nothing more puzzling to the Chinese on the other side of the Pacific Ocean than the American view of masks. It more typically reflects the differences in the way of thinking and government operations between China and the United States. It can also better show the influence of the attitude of a country's leaders on the epidemic situation, and how to politicize various non political issues after political polarization reaches a certain level.

The BBC commented that the debate over masks is a typical American struggle, with one side emphasizing public health and the other rising to the height of personal freedom.

Quarrel over masks

On the first weekend of September, a middle-aged woman in a manicure shop in Phoenix, Arizona, refused a customer's request to wear a mask, and left after a quarrel. In the video circulated on the Internet, she didn't spit out dirty words. She just yelled out: "I'm fighting for the last bit of civil rights we have. You're too stupid to understand."

In August, in a small coastal town in California, two young men handed out masks to passers-by for free. Most of them refused and even responded rudely with dirty words. Some people say novel coronavirus pneumonia can be caused by wearing a mask, and some say that the new crown pneumonia epidemic is a "dog shit lie"; some say that he has to walk several miles, and the mask is useless.

Since the epidemic, there has been a continuous stream of news on masks.

At the beginning of the epidemic, in New York and other places, many Chinese were harassed and abused because of wearing masks. Therefore, some overseas students did not dare to take out the masks because they put them in their bags. They even put on scarves after wearing masks.

After the outbreak of the epidemic, with more and more states implementing the mask order, wearing masks is no longer regarded as an alternative, but there is a continuous stream of news against the mask order.

On August 29, the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of art in New York, USA, take the temperature of visitors.

In Los Angeles, customers threatened to take the store owner to court because they asked to wear a mask. They even had fights and gunfights. In a Kansas restaurant, a man in his 40s wearing a "make America great again" hat pulled out a gun after being asked to wear a mask. In Salt Lake City, Utah, there are frequent weekend demonstrations against wearing masks. The latest one is the Labor Day holiday in September. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the State Capitol to protest against the governor's mask order and chant slogans of refusing to wear masks

By mid September, at least 34 states and the capital, Washington, D.C., had enacted mandatory masks. However, North Dakota and South Dakota rank first and second in the United States in terms of new cases per capita. However, neither of these two red states, which are dominated by the Republican Party, issued a governor's order requiring people to wear masks.

Doug bogum, the governor of North Dakota, advocates that it is up to the public to decide whether to wear masks or not, and the government only needs to encourage them through social media. Christie Nome, the governor of South Dakota, is known as a "staunch conservative" and never wore a mask in public during the epidemic. She expressed doubts about the widespread medical consensus that masks can help prevent infections.

Little or no masks are a feature of Trump's campaign rallies.

In early September, at the trump campaign rally held in an airplane hangar that can accommodate thousands of people in Pennsylvania, Trump's diehard fans stood together one after another. During the speech, a few people wearing masks also took off their masks and kept shouting: "America! America

Later, at the campaign rally in Winston Salem, North Carolina, although the Republican chairman of the local county asked trump to wear masks according to the North Carolina regulations, trump did not "go as the Romans do" and "naked face" in the audience, and ridiculed the North Carolina limit that the numerical control system of assembly people should be less than 50 during the epidemic.

At a recent news conference, trump also asked reporters who asked questions to remove their masks and ridiculed Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate who insisted on wearing masks.

On September 12, trump held a campaign rally on the tarmac of an airport in Minden, Nevada. CNN reporters found that trump fans had been lining up for hours without keeping a social distance or wearing masks.

Speaking of the reasons for not wearing masks, some said that the epidemic situation was not as serious as the public health experts said; some said that it was necessary to cultivate immunity through interaction without wearing masks; some said that the epidemic had been so long and felt that they had been immunized, even if they were infected with the virus, they were only going to the hospital for a few days; some said that the new epidemic did not exist at all, "it is a fight to destroy" The false plague created by the United States. ".

Professor Robert kritzman, who has a doctorate in medicine from Columbia University, wrote in the New York Times on September 10 about his mask.

Recently, at a birthday party in Pennsylvania, he wore a mask, but "I looked around and no one was wearing a mask. People just hang masks loosely around their necks or put them away

However, since the end of August, as the epidemic eased again, restaurants and bars in the Greater Washington area have now resumed business compared with those in the summer. Customers are full and even waiting in line at the front desk again. Although the distance between tables and chairs in the restaurant has been adjusted, the number of people waiting in line, seated and wearing masks has been reduced. The number of outdoor hikers wearing masks is much less than that in summer, but they are out of fashion due to wrong shoulders. Many people will choose to stand aside and turn their back as far as possible.

However, on the whole, even if Americans wear masks outside, their "tension" on masks is quite different from that at home.

Today, masks are no longer out of stock in the United States, and even N95 masks have dropped to their lowest price since the outbreak of the epidemic on amazon.com. However, many Americans not only don't pay attention to the protection level of ordinary medical, surgical and N95 masks, but also wear homemade cloth masks with poor protection performance, or simply put a big handkerchief or cloth towel around their neck to cover half of their face when necessary. Many Americans are more concerned about not the protective performance of the mask, but whether the appearance design is cool, which makes the mask a new favorite of American fashion design.

In addition, N95 masks with valves were not popular in the United States during the outbreak. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention specially reminds people not to wear built-in valve masks. In the US "business insider" and other websites published mask knowledge posts, valve masks were listed as the worst masks, worse than the masked cloth towel, the reason is only to protect themselves, not to protect others, pollutants into the air, contributing to the spread of the virus. This kind of "mask view" is in line with the traditional view of masks in western society. Before the outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia, the general idea of the United States and Western society is that healthy people do not wear masks. The purpose of wearing masks and wearing masks is to protect others.

2. Politicization of masks

The strong infectivity of the new coronavirus, especially the presence of a large number of asymptomatic infected people, has changed the attitude of western people, including Americans, towards wearing masks. As a low-cost intervention and protection means, universal wearing of masks will help to reduce the spread of new coronavirus and make everyone safer, which has basically become the consensus of American and international academic circles.

However, due to the superposition of epidemic situation, party struggle and election background, and the long-term distrust of the system, elites and opposition parties in many Americans, masks are politicized and symbolized to a large extent in the United States. The mask has become a "new symbol of party culture war" and one of the signs and catalysts of political differences.

On July 8, 2020, the stone lion in front of the New York Public Library was put on a mask.

Three political scholars (Syracuse's Shana gadarian, UC Irvine's Sara Goodman, and Cornell's Tom pepinsky) from Syracuse's Shana gadarian, UC Irvine's Sara Goodman, and Cornell's Tom pepinsky, analyzed the behavior and attitude of more than 2400 Americans in the epidemic, and found that there was a strong correlation between partisan stance and public attitudes towards wearing masks.

There was an article on politico's website that simply titled: "those who wear masks are self righteous liberals and those who refuse to wear masks are risk averse Republicans.". An American named kimmasters posted his story on social media - he walked his dog with a mask on, and people without a mask asked, "are you voting for the Democratic Party?"

A recent study by the University of Washington found that at the state level, whether and when to issue a mask order, the Party of the governor is the most important determinant, surpassing other factors such as the spread of the epidemic and mortality. Compared with democratic states, Republican states have, on average, delayed the introduction of masks in indoor public places by nearly 30 days, according to the study. The proportion of Democrats wearing masks outdoors is also much higher than that of Republicans.

The signals released by leaders' words and deeds are bound to affect public response. The mainstream media in the United States believe that President Trump's overall negative attitude towards the wearing of masks has deepened the differences in American society over the issue of wearing masks, which is an important reason for the politicization of the issue of masks in the United States.

Trump himself did not tweet under pressure until July when the epidemic was high, saying that wearing a mask was a "patriotic act" and that he wore it in public for the first time when he visited a military hospital. However, no photos of him wearing the mask were taken by the media since then. After the National Congress of the two parties, he held campaign rallies one after another, and the vast majority of supporters present did not wear masks.

Why is trump reluctant to wear a mask?

U.S. media have quoted White House sources as saying that trump thinks wearing a mask will "look ridiculous" and "send a wrong message.". According to the interpretation of American media, trump has always attached great importance to the management of his own television image, hoping to show his "strong leadership" and strong "tough guy" image, and put economic restart in the first place. However, wearing a mask is against such information transmission, which is a kind of "weakness" and is not conducive to his re-election.

In the view of some trump supporters, the picture of trump wearing a mask will show that the United States can not do anything about the epidemic, because "even the president of the United States must hide behind the mask.".

In the view of Democrats and liberal media, supporting wearing masks means believing in science, supporting scientific decision-making by professionals, attaching importance to public interests, having a sense of civic responsibility, taking seriously social alienation measures such as home orders, and being willing to endure personal inconvenience for the public interest and save lives