The Stigma of the Masks
It is indisputable that major league mistakes were made by the governments of both Israel and the United States in dealing with the recent 2019 – 2023 global COVID-19 pandemic. I have previously noted here some failings in Israel’s handling of the crisis by its government leadership, healthcare establishment, and populace; you, dear reader, can certainly recite many, many more. These missteps have resulted in extreme and broad universal distrust among the public.
It is clear that a noticeable epidemic, possibly new and novel, is now developing; its ultimate magnitude and how it will compare with the previous one remains to be seen. Israel, the United States, and plenty of other nations now need to surmount the cynical public distrust which their own blunders created, in order to successfully address the infection outbreak.
On 7 January 2026, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its “2025–2026 Flu Season” webpage, which four days previously had been dated 17 November 2025. The page informs us that “All flu vaccines for the 2025-2026 season will be trivalent. This means they are formulated to protect against three main seasonal influenza Type A and B viruses: an A(H1N1) virus, an A(H3N2) virus, and a B/Victoria lineage virus.” The CDC website also notes increases in seasonal influenza, RSV, and COVID-19 activity throughout the nation. Similar forecasts are reported elsewhere in the world, including Israel. [That is correct: COVID is still here!].
In both Israel and the United States there were governmental decrees compelling the wearing of face masks during the 2019 – 2023 pandemic. In September 2025, leading Israeli physicians strongly advocated for mask-wearing in hospitals, physicians’ offices, and nursing homes, following a trend of such calls among other nations, and the example of the Wolfson Medical Center in Israel. In December 2025, the Israel Health Ministry issued a forceful recommendation to that effect.
I noted the possibility of compulsory masking in venues beyond Israel’s healthcare sector at the time this blogpost was initially contemplated. I now increasingly view it as inevitable, what with various subsequent developments such as the report last week of a healthy 2-month-old Israeli child, who cannot be vaccinated at such an age, dying from the flu; recent reports from the United States point in a similar direction. If you view this as undue alarmism, it is alarmism rooted in the government’s (mis)handlings of the COVID-19 pandemic.
* * *
Masks indeed have valid uses in the current situation; they are a valuable means of dealing with respiratory infections. The Mayo Clinic advises that “People who are not ill and choose to wear a mask can get the best protection by wearing a mask every time they are in public and at home when around others.” A simple “do-it-yourself” homemade mask can limit the quantity and dispersion of the contagion exhaled by the wearer, even if it does little to reduce whatever atmosphere-borne viruses the wearer might inhale; it is the masks such as the FDA-approved N95 used by healthcare professionals that perform the self-protection function.
There were predictions during the COVID epidemic that “Face Masks May Be ‘New Normal’ in Post-Virus Life.” [As noted in an earlier posting on this blog, I myself had reason to expect masking during the COVID epidemic to be a relatively long-term thing; it was, but not quite as long as I had predicted.]. Such is certainly possible. The emergence of a new virus strain, whether a result of natural viral evolutionary processes or otherwise, may well make the face mask as much a part of one’s everyday outfit as a wallet or purse. But mask policies and mandates would still need to be appropriate for the situation even if such a state of affairs were to ever occur, and the government and healthcare establishments would still need to command the necessary public trust and confidence in order to do so.
Masks are still with us, and will somehow be implicated in the epidemic now brewing. One factor that severely impedes the prudent implementation of masks is the social stigma associated with their use. Face masks are viewed by Western society at large as a marker of disease, implicitly branding the wearer as someone to be avoided, pitied, and shunned; this stands in contradistinction to public attitudes in East Asian countries such as Japan, where mask-wearing was a polite social habit even before COVID, and governmental decrees have always been advisory but not mandatory. The well-circulated reports that masking was ineffective in slowing the spread of COVID, which have been debunked, only fed the social stigma. While the broad-brush coercive approaches such as those used in Israel and in the USA during the 2019 – 2023 pandemic may well have retarded the spread of the disease, they did little in the end to address the social stigma of mask-wearing.
* * *
During the 2019 – 2023 pandemic, the apparel industry elevated face masks from an imposed daily hygiene necessity to a stylish wardrobe accessory and fashion statement. Fashion designers were offering designer face masks, including masks that complemented brides’ wedding gowns, women’s dresses with matching face masks, and one designer even produced a matching top set to go with a the face mask she designed.
This evolution, of course, does mitigate the stigma of wearing a mask even if the fashionable mask’s efficacy is less than that of masks used by healthcare professionals. Indeed, one market research analysis pegs the worldwide face mask market at $1.5 billion for 2023, with a 16 percent annual growth projected for the next decade. But mask-wearing still remains a stigma. The fashionistas’ play during the COVID epidemic was reactive and has yet to proactively swing into full scale for the developing influenza epidemic; more is needed in order to truly address the social stigma.
* * *
People who are affected by a respiratory illness but well enough to engage in their normal daily activities should wear masks in public, yet the numbers of visible mask wearers in public places clearly fall short of the number who should be wearing them. The social stigma no doubt deters those who really need to mask themselves from doing so.
I do not now await a “masks are required” diktat from the government. On my own volition, I have already begun to publicly circulate while masked up. Not because my medical situation warrants it. Not for the primary purpose of preventing my own infection. Not an attempt to boost the mask market (although neither do I rule out investing my finances there). It is because if more people wearing masks are seen on the streets, those who really need to be wearing masks – such as the woman who was in the Light Rail car I rode a few days ago who incessantly coughed and sneezed during the trip – will feel less awkward and threatened. The public appearance of increased masking would be a very powerful tool to reinforce the vital public confidence in the practice.
I hope to not be a Lone Ranger in this scheme; additional people joining the effort are solicited, and the effort will be worthwhile if mask stigmatization is overcome for even one person. The irony here is not lost that I am masking up – and imploring others to mask up – with the ultimate goal of staving off unnecessarily excessive mask-up orders from the government.
And so, I invite you to do your part to help tame the social stigma. It does not matter whether the mask you walk out and about in is a standard disposable hospital mask, a do-it-yourself type, or a pricy haute couture piece from a famed fashion designer. Whether you set a schedule for a specific day of the week or time slot, or, like me, ambulate bemasked whenever you happen to have occasion to do your shopping or other errands is similarly of little moment.
What is important is that whichever mask you choose to wear is worn correctly – that is, it covers both your mouth and nose. The poor public examples by Israeli government officials during the COVID pandemic were costly impediments to the government’s ability to handle the crisis; we need to be credible if we hope to have any success in lessening the social stigma of masking.
Even if mask-wearing becomes a permanent part of the new normal, then it should be used as a precision tool, and not as a sledgehammer recklessly swung as was done during the COVID pandemic. Moreover, if masking indeed is becoming an inextricable component of life (and I would not bet anything to the contrary), then we all had better adjust to it on terms beneficial to society at large, and not, as was done during the COVID-19 pandemic, on conditions dictated by the officials and bureaucrats who abysmally failed our society. My objective here, then, is to alleviate the mask stigma so that it does not impede rational discussions towards the best use of masks as a tool in dealing with the challenges that lie ahead.
Until the public stigma is substantially eliminated, there can be no holistic rational discussion as to how (and not whether) face masks are to fit in with the approaches taken to address the currently-unfolding epidemic (and those that will follow). And without rational discussion, the government and healthcare establishment, whether Israeli or American, cannot be trusted to work in the interest of the public good.
