Ear we go, coronavirus causes yet another problem

THE killer virus has spawned a new medical condition, thankfully less dangerous. I call it mask-ear or maskitis: a painful red swelling behind the lobe caused by some face coverings.

The elastic straps on disposable paper masks rub into the soft flesh at the side of your head, and after several hours it can become really uncomfortable.

Five hours on buses, four hours on a plane and four more hours on trains in a single day gave me a right old lobeful. The condition is exacerbated for people like me – I wear specs all the time and often suffer soreness from the frames.

This creates a double-whammy of irritation, unless you have cauliflower or sticky-out lugs. Workers like shop employees who are now compelled to wear the damn things throughout a long shift must get serious mask-ear. It could become an industrial disease.

Of course, maskitis is nothing compared with the horrors of catching Covid-19, but it’s something we’re going to have to get used to. In fact, face coverings might become the norm, as they have been for years in Japan, partly for reasons of social etiquette. There are types that fasten round the back of the head and make you look like a surgeon on their way to an operating theatre, which obviate the risk.

And there are fashionable, patterned versions that you pull up from round your neck (favoured by Mrs R) to cover your mouth and nose. Whatever method you choose, it’s better than dying of this virus, so mask up! Failure to do so is not just antisocial, it’s potentially lethal.

And they might at long last do away with the modish habit of greeting people with mwah-mwah actors’ fake kisses.