Mask use, risk-mitigation behaviours and pandemic fatigue during the COVID-19 pandemic in five cities in Australia, the UK and USA: A cross-sectional survey

In the absence of a vaccine, non-pharmaceutical measures such as physical distancing, wearing masks and hand hygiene have been key to controlling COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic (Seale et al., 2020). Whilst Asian countries have a longer history of wearing masks for both infection and pollution, especially after SARS (2003) (Burgess and Horii, 2012; Sin, 2016), the use of masks in the community is not a cultural norm in Western countries (MacIntyre and Chughtai, 2015), and mask wearing was initially discouraged, whilst handwashing was promoted.

Source: International Journal of Infectious Diseases - March 23, 2021 Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Raina MacIntyre, Phi-Yen Nguyen, Abrar Ahmad Chughtai, Mallory Trent, Brian Gerber, Kathleen Steinhofel, Holly Seale Source Type: research