Why, you ask?
Because the students are sick, and wearing a mask prevents the spread of infection. In fact, I should probably be wearing a mask at work as I type this because I’m pretty sure I’ve got a little bit of a cough.
Except here’s the thing. I’ve seen people wearing masks by themselves inside their own cars, which is doing absolutely nothing to spread germs to the people around them because there are no people around them. Also, they actually will take off the masks to cough or sneeze, which undoes all the germ trapping that the mask is supposed to be doing.
If you are sick enough to wear a mask, you are sick enough to stay home.
A lot of Japanese people wear masks for "prevention," too. Even if they arent sick, they wear them to not get germs from people who are.
ReplyDeleteThey also wear them to avoid breathing in pollen. My student told me that many of the trees that were planted by the US after WW2 produced higher levels of pollen than Japanese people had historically been used to so the number of Japanese people with hay fever is quite high. That's why so many people wear the masks in the spring fall and summer.
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