The reason this only occurred to me today is that I ventured out for a doctor's appointment, wearing a face mask, and I don't think I've ever felt so self-conscious. It was hard enough wearing it and sunglasses, with the latter steaming up as I pegged it down the road to a last-minute appointment that had opened up suddenly, like a coveted Ocado delivery slot. I must have looked like Griffin in HG Wells' The Invisible Man. Actually, I did. Thankfully, I was not alone.
On the rare occasions I have ventured out into my local high street during the lockdown I've been struck by the number of others wearing face masks. New Malden has a sizeable Korean community, so pre-coronavirus, someone wearing a mask wasn't all that unusual a sight, given the cultural popularity of facial coverings among Asian nations, dating back to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. But whereas we might have once looked upon our Korean neighbours with the wry smile once worn while watching Clive James's Sunday night observations of life in Asia, the bandit look is fast becoming de rigueur. In fact, it's conceivable that for the forseeable future, this is how we'll be looking at most people we encounter. From next Monday it will be compulsory to wear face coverings when travelling on public transport and for all staff and outpatients visiting hospitals. Wearing a mask might, too, become a condition of entry to shops as they start to reopen from next week.
Slowly but surely, Britain is losing its chin - literally. The lower halves of our faces are retreating behind a layer of cloth as the price to be paid for venturing into the community again. Soon, we will be recognisable only by our eyes, eyebrows and whatever state our newly-bouffant hair is in. Throw on the Wayfarers, as I did this morning, and we're almost in the realm of The Who's Tommy - "...put in your earplugs, put on your eyeshades - you know where to put the cork". However, despite health secretary Matt Hancock's claim that COVID-19 itself is "in retreat", it is not. New infections and deaths in the UK may have come down considerably, but as it stands, there is neither a cure or a vaccine, and people are still dying, which in my view means that it's still out there.
There are two issues with this: firstly, there is still no consensus amongst experts as to whether face masks, of the kind most people have managed to acquire privately, do any good. A German study has suggested that the mandatory wearing of masks has coincided with a drop in infections, but there is still some doubt as to a direct link. The coronavirus is a tricky bugger and unlike any other when looked at from a micro-biological point of view, which means that all the masks and anti-bac gels in the world won't do a damn thing unless social distancing continues to be rigidly applied. Although the medical and scientific community does agree that masks - even if just fashioned crudely from your once-favourite tour T-shirt - do offer some protection (to you and to others), it's still only limited.
They might stop virus-laden droplets from spreading out into the 'cone' of dispersal after you cough or sneeze but, apparently, they're not so good at preventing the tiny particles from getting in from other people. Then there's the false sense of security they might give: even masked up, the high street this morning was full of foreboding - some wearing masks, some not, some observing two metres' social distance, some not. One man I encountered, almost immediately after I left the surgery, came out of a newsagent coughing copiously, albeit into his mask, which must have been pleasant for him. He certainly showed no sign of concern that he was right in front of me and others as he went.
Masks are, therefore, not shields. I may not fully understand the epidemiology at work here, and I may also live in one of the London boroughs with the lowest number of coronavirus cases of all, but I still view the world outside my front window as being a hostile one that could kill me. My mask, this morning, would have only offered a limited amount of protection. So what's the alternative? Are we now only to venture into exposed environments wearing hazmat suits? Well, it's a thought. Ever since I was told to stay home or stay alert, whichever government doctrine was in force at the time, I have consistently looked at 'outside' as a danger, as if Chernobyl had moved in across the road, and anyone out there was suddenly glowing like the kids in those Ready Brek ads in the 1970s.
The message from government is, increasingly, give up your fears. The economy is on its knees and won't return unless we get out into the great unknown and start putting ourselves at risk. "Some risk," the experts might say, but still a risk. No doubt soon we'll be told that the risk is no more than that associated with crossing the road, though with the number of idiots using the lockdown to speed up and down suburban backstreets, that's not such the low-risk experience it once was. Others will say that the face mask is a small price to pay for freedom, but think of what - and who - it cuts off. My elderly mother, who has been losing her hearing, struggles at best to hear what you say to her, let alone from two metres away. Not being able to read my lips will cut her off further.
But, as I opened this post suggesting, perhaps the country being forced to look like The Lone Ranger for the foreseeable future will not be so bad. Maybe we'll just get used to it. Maybe, until this thing gets beaten, we'll just have to get used to walking around with only half our facial identity visible. Some, I'm sure will like that. Others, like me, will have to accept it as simply essential.
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