 |
| gettyimagesbank |
By Jung Min-ho
A flight attendant starts telling passengers to put on their masks after serving meals on a plane late at night. A passenger sitting next to the window without wearing one continues to sleep as if he did not hear the voice, while some people reluctantly put their masks back on to cover only their mouth while their noses remain exposed.
This scene, observed on a Korean Air flight from Incheon to Sydney on Feb. 26, showed that Korea's air travel mask mandate no longer achieves the results it intended: Many don't wear their masks (unless they are told to by flight attendants) and the rule is not being strictly enforced.
Korea is one of only a handful of countries that still require people to wear masks on airplanes and other public transportation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But the effectiveness of that policy has increasingly been questioned, especially given the fact that more than 98 percent of the population are estimated to have COVID-19 antibodies after being infected or vaccinated.
Korea was among the countries praised for effective strategies in their fight against the virus, including universal masking. Yet fresh data suggests that the authorities need to review the decisions they made in the early phase of the health crisis as the rest of the world moves past it.
Perhaps the most rigorous and extensive study on the effects of mask-wearing was published recently by Cochrane, a respected international health research group based in London. The findings, discovered by a team led by Tom Jefferson, an Oxford epidemiologist, demonstrate that masks may not be as effective as previously believed.
The researchers concluded that physical intervention ― masking, for example ― "makes little to no difference" in reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses ― including COVID-19. That includes high-quality masks such as N95. The institution is widely regarded as the gold standard of evidence-based medicine.
The conclusions were based on 78 randomized controlled trials, with a total of over 610,000 participants around the world, including in Mexico, Bangladesh and Norway.
Especially in environments such as inside aircraft, which are designed with features to reduce the potential transmission of viruses on board, the risk of infection could be even lower. That's why the International Air Transport Association, a global trade association of airlines, says, "If a country has removed mandatory mask rules in indoor environments (like Korea has)… mask-wearing should not be mandatory for air transport."
People might choose to wear masks for personal reasons. According to a recent poll, more than 20 percent of college students say they would wear masks both indoors and outdoors, giving reasons such as concerns about COVID-19 or flu infections or they feel more comfortable wearing them after it becomes a habit.
But the policy requiring everyone to wear one needs to be thoroughly reviewed as the study quite clearly shows there are no population-level benefits to masking.
So it is welcome news that the government has finally started discussing whether it should drop all its mask restrictions. The mandatory mask rule should be removed ― if not enforced more strictly. Currently, it exists in name only, bringing no practical effects, only inconvenience.
