What will make masks become second nature?
When Alexandra Nicole Rushing’s cotton face masks arrived, she posted a photo of herself and her youngest son, 2, wearing the masks on Instagram for her more than 77,000 followers to see.
The photo fits in with others on her Instagram feed, which includes skincare products, photos with her children and ideas for interior decorating. It, too, has beige tones, and you can see her son’s smiling face as he playfully pulls down his mask. The photo makes the masks look normal.
“I’m a lifestyle influencer with a heavy focus on home and garden and parenting,” Rushing said as to why she included the photo on her Instagram feed. “As a parent addressing real-life issues, I thought it was important to be transparent about what I’m doing at that time.”
Rushing, founder of the blog City Chic Living, said she still feels strange putting on a mask when she ventures out in public, and sometimes forgets, but thinks people will become more comfortable with facial coverings as they see others wearing them too, whether in public or online.
Rushing said some of the best ways to normalize mask wearing for herself have been keeping them easily accessible in a glove box or purse. Her children didn’t like wearing them at first, so they got kid-friendly designs like Spiderman.
Health officials are hopeful that there will be a shift in the public, that wearing masks will go from being an abnormality to something that is second nature.
“When I’m going out for an errand or anything, it’s like, ‘Do I have my keys, do I have my wallet, do I have my mask?’ If I leave my house without any of those, it’s like something’s missing. I think what helps to make it habit, second nature, is realizing how you are protecting yourself and protecting others.” Samilia Colar Owner and designer of Texstyle
Last week, Shelby County Health Director Alisa Haushalter compared wearing masks to when people first began wearing seatbelts in cars — and didn’t start putting them on right away.
“Now it’s really unheard of to get into a car and not put on a seatbelt,” Haushalter said. “So it’s important that we create a social environment where masks are the norm.”
Creating that social environment will take education, visibility, fashion sense and a certain amount of peer pressure, say health officials, influencers like Rushing and mask makers.
Mask wearing on the rise in United States
Already, more than four in five Americans, 84%, say they have worn a mask in public in an effort to limit the spread of the new coronavirus, according to a survey from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project. The survey of 4,576 Americans was conducted May 7 to 14.
Other polling found change over time based on health official’s recommendations.
Initially, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against the use of face masks in public places. That changed April 3, when the CDC said people who cannot easily social distance should use cloth face coverings along with other measures such as hand washing.
According to the CDC, a cloth mask may not protect the wearer, but it can keep the wearer from spreading the virus to others. That’s particularly important since COVID-19 can be spread by people without symptoms who don’t know they have the virus.
A Gallup poll since April 7 found the percentage of Americans who reported they had worn a mask outside of their homes has increased from 38% to 62% in just one week after the CDC announcement.
And, many are expecting face mask use to increase in coming months as people in the United States return to business but continue to combat COVID-19 without a vaccine.
So far, the Shelby County Health Department has been hesitant to require residents to wear face coverings
The most recent health directive requires employees who interact with the public to wear face coverings, but only encourages members of the public to wear them. Businesses may have their own requirements for customers.
Haushalter has said the focus now is on educating the public on the need to wear face coverings.
According to the CDC, COVID-19 mainly spreads through respiratory droplets that can be expelled from a sneeze, a cough or even from talking. The droplets usually travel around 6 feet, but could instead be caught by a cloth barrier if the infected person is wearing a facial covering.
The Shelby County Health Department will be surveying who is and is not wearing masks in order to do more targeted education, Haushalter said.
A form of self-expression
Samilia Colar, owner and designer of Texstyle, has been posting numerous photos of the masks she sews and sells on her social media, including selfies of people wearing her masks out and about.
Wearing a mask has already become second nature to her, she said.
“When I’m going out for an errand or anything, it’s like, ‘Do I have my keys, do I have my wallet, do I have my mask?’” Colar said. “If I leave my house without any of those, it’s like something’s missing. I think what helps to make it habit, second nature, is realizing how you are protecting yourself and protecting others.”
People are more likely to wear masks if they’re a fashion statement, Haushalter has said.
That’s something Colar agrees with. “If it’s becoming a necessity for our culture, you want to make it fit more of who you are as a person,” Colar said.
Her masks are made in bright prints, with fabrics from Nigeria. Colar also makes child-sized masks.
Education within the family unit could go a long way toward instilling the importance of mask wearing in society, Colar said. Her children love wearing their masks, showing them off to each other like a “badge of honor.”
As for posting pictures online, the more people see masks represented in people’s daily lives, the more they will become normal, Colar said.
Amanda Bernard, who runs the blog Memphis Mandysue, also headed to Instagram to post a picture of her mask, one she made herself out of cheerful, colorful fabric that meshed with bright colors and prints in the clothing on her feed.
When she first visited a grocery store and saw people wearing masks, it was shocking and felt cold, she said, as people avoided speaking together. Two weeks later, it felt “more relaxed” as people began exchanging pleasantries again, even if masked.
“Fashion to me has always been a form of self-expression and I think right now wearing a mask is a way to say to others around you, ‘Hey, I care about you,’” Bernard said.
Katherine Burgess covers county government, religion and the suburbs. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-5292799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.