COVID-19: ‘People who wear facemasks 13 times more likely to observe physical distancing’

Wearing a mask while shopping makes you 13 times more likely to stick to social distancing and engage with measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, a study has found.

Experts from the University of Erfurt asked nearly 7,000 people their views on masks and their feelings towards other people who do or don’t wear face coverings.

People wearing a facemask were seven times more likely to wash their hands, 20 times more likely to avoid handshakes, and 13 times more likely to stick to distancing.

Study author Cornelia Betsch said the findings are “Evidence that a mandatory mask policy is an effective, fair and socially responsible solution to curb coronavirus.”

Since June 2020, the World Health Organisation has recommended that healthy people wear non-medical masks to control the spread of COVID-19, for example, in settings where physical distancing cannot be achieved.

Countries increasingly require masks in closed public spaces such as supermarkets.

Based on weekly cross-sectional surveys of nearly 7,000 people in Germany during April-May 2020, researchers report that maskwearing behaviour increased sharply when a mandatory mask policy was implemented.

They say this was despite only moderate support for the policy and that mask wearing was associated positively with other protective behaviours.

As well as examining the survey data, the team carried out an experiment involving 925 participants involving a fictional scenario and people not wearing a mask.

They found that a voluntary mask policy might lead to lower compliance, greater stigmatisation, and be perceived as less fair than a mandatory policy.

The results from both studies indicate that, independent from policies, wearing masks is a social contract wherein compliant people perceive each other more positively, and non-compliance is socially punished.