In the past 36 months, I have been lucky enough to travel internationally twice.  But during the times that I have been able to do so, I have noticed that where masks are optional, a large number of people would opt against wearing their masks. 

While it is their choice whether or not they should be wearing one, especially in such close quarters with other people such as an airport or airplane, opting to do away with the mask could have detrimental effects - a single person with Covid could unconsciously give it to hundreds of thousands of others just simply by not wearing your mask. 

With rumors of Hong Kong lifting the mask mandate when we travel, it may give people the idea that not wearing a mask in public will now be socially acceptable given our current situation. Personally, I believe that Hong Kong should not lift the mask mandate for three reasons. Firstly, there are always new variants of covid which are getting more contagious that the previous ones. Secondly, studies show that you are more likely to get Covid when you are indoors and not wearing a mask. Lastly, Covid is already very contagious and traveling is one of main reasons why different variants of Covid have spread throughout the world.

How different are the Covid variants now from when they first appeared?

Firstly, let us compare some of the first Covid variants to the ones we have now, it would be noticeable how different the symptoms would be. For example, with the Delta variant, the only common symptoms would be a runny nose, sore throat, fever, loss of smell, and headache. However, while the new Omicron variant, BA.5 does include the symptoms from the original Delta variant, the risk of worse complications becomes higher with every repeated covid infection a person might have according to UC Davis Health.

Some of the newer complications that could occur would be a heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and cognitive impairment. They also state that with every time a person may be infected, this may lengthen the time that they have these symptoms and which would also increase the person's ability to spread Covid for longer periods of time. 

The new Omicron variants have also been seen to be more contagious. According to Yale Medicine, while the first Delta variant was 90% more contagious than the Alpha variant, scientists believe that Omicron is currently the most transferable variant yet which makes the idea of wearing a mask in Hong Kong even more necessary. 

Are you more likely going to catch Covid while traveling when you don’t wear a mask?

Second, currently with the Omicron variant, it has become two to three times more likely that passengers at the airport or on an airplane will catch Covid. According to Angus Whitley and Bloomberg, even with most airplanes filtration systems filtering out the air every few minutes, Omicron is highly infectious and whenever the holidays come around, the risk of infection just becomes that much higher. When you’re wearing a mask, you would be protecting yourself, and even the people around you. When you come close to someone who may have the virus, the mask will trap the viral particles and stop you from becoming exposed to it. 

Tara Pope and Knuvl Sheikh from The New York Times stated that a study done on how masks help stop the risk of Covid said that even when an infected passenger is only a few rows away from you, if you’re wearing a mask, the chance of contracting the strain is lowered by 54%.  

Countries that have lifted their mask mandate: What is their current status?

Lastly, a reason why I believe that Hong Kong should not lift the mask mandate is because of previous places around the world and what happened when they lifted their mask mandate. 

For example, in July 2021, the English government decided to lift their mask mandate due to the fact that the school year was over. But when a new variant came and quickly spread throughout England, in November 2021, the former English Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, reinstated mask wearing in shops and public transport. 

Another example would be the United States. In June 2022, the US decided to lift the mask mandate and masks were not even required on public transport or indoors. People who were traveling to the US were also not required to take a negative RAT test in order to enter the country. And now, if we look at which country has the highest Covid numbers, it would be the United States with 103,734,451 current cases while other places are not even within the 50,000s of cases.  

How did different variants of Omicron spread throughout Hong Kong? 

One of the main ways that new Covid variants have been spread is because of airplanes and travelers from different countries bringing over new variants.  Let us take last year’s fifth wave in Hong Kong, for example, which started in December 2021 and ended in March 2022. According to The SCMP, a woman who was a Cathay Pacific flight attendant brought over an Omicron variant and infected her mother who in turn spread it throughout Hong Kong which caused the fifth wave of Covid in Hong Kong. 

All of these incoming cases have caused concerns about the elderly community and their ability to fight the infection. In this situation, when this variant was relatively new to Hong Kong, around a third of the people who were infected were people who were 60 or older. 

Even though people should be able to make their own decisions, I believe that when you are given the choice to wear a mask or not, you should think about how you would be affecting the people around you. In addition, just because you see others not wearing a mask, you should still evaluate whether joining the bandwagon would be the right thing to do.

It is important for Hong Kong to open up, but at the same time, we should all still be careful and take the necessary precautions to keep our community safe. Whether we get to travel or not this year, let us all stay safe! 

Sources:

Elliott, C. (2020) Traveling for the holidays? Here's how to avoid contracting covid-19 at the Airport, USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network. Available at: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/advice/2020/12/18/how-avoid-being-infected-covid-19-airport/6505537002/ (Accessed: February 9, 2023). 

Parker-pope, T. and Sheikh, K. (2022) Nervous about flying? Here's why a mask will still help protect you even if others aren't wearing one., The New York Times. The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/well/masks-airplanes-covid.html (Accessed: February 9, 2023). 

Tara Parker-Pope (2022) Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Parker-Pope (Accessed: February 9, 2023). 

The Standard (2022) HK detects first XBB sub-variant infection, adds 4874 Covid cases, The Standard. Available at: https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/195691/HK-detects-first-XBB-sub-variant-infection,-adds-4874-Covid-cases (Accessed: February 9, 2023). 

Dunseath, F. (2022) Mask mandates: How have other countries fared after dropping requirements?, RNZ. RNZ. Available at: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/474621/mask-mandates-how-have-other-countries-fared-after-dropping-requirements (Accessed: February 9, 2023). 

Doucleff, M. (2020) Do masks on plane flights really cut your risk of catching COVID-19?, NPR. NPR. Available at: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/10/20/925892185/do-masks-really-cut-your-risk-of-catching-covid-19-on-long-plane-flights#:~: (Accessed: February 9, 2023). 

Coronavirus (2023) Omicron variant: What we know so far about this covid-19 strain, UC Davis Health. Available at: https://health.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/covid-19-information/omicron-variant (Accessed: February 9, 2023). 

Cathay worker among 9 new covid-19 cases; Hong Kong 'ready to Tighten Rules' (2021) South China Morning Post. Available at: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3161087/cathay-pacific-crew-member-among-9-new-imported (Accessed: February 9, 2023). 

Katella, K. (2023) Omicron, Delta, Alpha, and more: What to know about the coronavirus variants, Yale Medicine. Yale Medicine. Available at: https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/covid-19-variants-of-concern-omicron (Accessed: February 9, 2023). 

Cheung, P.-H.H., Chan, C.-P. and Jin, D.-Y. (2022) Lessons learned from the fifth wave of covid-19 in Hong Kong in early 2022, Taylor & Francis. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2022.2060137 (Accessed: February 9, 2023).