Japan has avoided Covid-19 disaster and people here accept masks – making the debate in the UK even more bewildering
As a resident of a country where not wearing a mask is now akin to venturing out in one’s underwear, I’ve watched with growing exasperation the debate in the UK over whether wearing a face covering is a potentially effective defence against Covid-19.
Although the benefits of hand hygiene and social distancing – two habits promoted by the World Health Organization in the early days of the pandemic – are widely accepted, it will take time to establish which combinations of factors, both official and cultural, have spared some countries while leaving others battling high numbers of infections and deaths.
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