CMAJ (masks are psychologically damaging)
“We act out our collective anxiety about pandemics by wearing masks even when there isn’t a pandemic,1but wearing masks reinforces the idea of a possible future of pandemic. The problem of affect in political terms is a contagious one: fear spreads among the public, leading to intensification of risk management — the classic example being 9/11 and the war on terrorism. Fear of infective risk spreading communicably becomes an ironic pun. Pandemics occurred in 1918, 1957, 1968, 2003 and 2009. Thus, the conversation changes from if the next pandemic will occur to when the next pandemic will occur. Because we are currently “between pandemics,” our existence is book-ended by the realized threats of the past and the reasonable threats of the future — to our detriment, with this detriment masked by the surgical mask itself.”