2.3 Face covering as symbol of solidarity
In Czechia, a community-led #Masks4All advocacy campaign rapidly reshaped societal norms around the acceptability of wearing a face covering in public. ‘Mask-trees’ helped to distribute face coverings and communities co-ordinated creating face coverings for each other.18 Social media was used to share messaging about making them at home, demonstrate celebrity support for the campaign, distribute songs to encourage their use and add humour through photos of public statues wearing face coverings. This created a movement, likely because wearing a face covering is a conspicuous action – which prompted others to imitate this behaviour and follow the example. #Masks4All slogans such as ‘keep your droplets to yourself ’ and ‘my mask protects you, your mask protects me’appeals to a shared set of moral values. This can create new symbolism around wearing, making and distributing face coverings that is based on solidarity. 19
2.4 Face covering as symbolic muzzle
COVID-19 prompted country-level mandates on lockdown, physical distancing and face covering in the interest of public health and worker safety.2 In some contexts, these collective measures have been interpreted as an infringement on civil liberties and autonomy, with the face covering symbolising a muzzle.15 This conflict between norms has played out in retail spaces, where employees enforcing the wearing of face coverings as requirement for using a retail service have been subjected to verbal and physical abuse by consumers.15 Some public figures, including the President of the United States, have on occasion refused to wear a face covering as an assertion of authority. Some conservative women in the USA have appropriated the slogan “my body, my choice” from the pro-choice movement to which many conservatives are opposed, to protest mandated face coverings as an infringement on civil liberties.20 Implementing face coverings in the face of such deeply-held resistance will not be easy, and requires active reframing of the social practice. Rather than a muzzle imposed by the state, the person wearing the mandated face covering might be framed as a protector, thereby making the practice more acceptable.
Incorporating sociocultural narratives in guidelines for face covers
Guidelines for face coverings have predominantly framed them within medical narratives, using infection control messaging with a ‘public education’ approach.1 We argue that uptake of face coverings will be advanced by adapting this medial narrative to include sociocultural narratives. This adaptation should embrace social meaning and moral worth of face coverings. This could enable the public to select a face covering that is meaningful to them and which they will feel able to wear. (See table 1).