Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wears a mask during her visit to the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington in August. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wears a mask during her visit to the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington in August. Photo / Mark Mitchell
COMMENT:
"Mum, can you buy me this fake Gucci face mask," said the wannabe bougie 12-year-old while pointing to a post on Facebook.
"Ooh, can I have a Steamers one? The one with the Māori warrior on it," said the Bay-proud, sports-loving 11-year-old.
How is it, that just days afterface masks became compulsory on buses that they also became the must-have fashion accessory of 2020?
Their requests came months after I had already stocked up with your generic, plain, disposable face masks for our home supply should we ever need them.
It also followed the 11-year-old questioning how useful masks were in protecting someone from Covid-19. I gave him the pants/peeing analogy and, though horrified at the example, it all made sense.
We went into lockdown on March 26, and have lived between alert levels 4 and 1 ever since.
Face masks only became compulsory on public buses last week.
Not only have the number of posts selling reusable face masks seemed to have tripled since then, but the number of people I've seen wearing fashionable versions increased also.
This is obviously not a bad thing because anything that reduces the risk of contracting and spreading Covid-19, while also allowing people to go about their lives with as much normalcy as possible, is good.
It's also allowing people, who may have been financially impacted by Covid-19 to make extra money through the selling of reusable face masks ... which has also got to be better for the environment than disposable ones?
But I do wonder why, months later, it's only coming into force now.
Should we not have made this a thing during lockdown when buses were operating for essential service workers and also when they were reintegrated into people's lives as a daily form of transport for members of the public?
In recent days, another Kiwi life has been lost at the hands of the deadly virus that has plagued the world, and the number of cases we have continues to increase.
The efforts we are putting in as a country are strong, but do they go far enough? Some will say they go too far, and others not far enough - but until we have eradicated Covid-19 we can't really say we have done enough, can we?
