Canada has no immunity to this [protest noise]
and as the pandemic persists those opposing masks
seem to get a bit louder a bit more aggressive and certainly statistically a bit more partisan
but the picture is still that Canada is a place where faith and public health is high
and mask wearing is the norm it was in the summer at least for some 83 percent of Canadians not so
for our neighbors to the south where the summer occasional mask wearing was the norm for just 68
[Trump] The CDC is advising the use of non-medical cloth face covering as an additional voluntary public
health measure so it's voluntary you don't have to do it i don't think i'm going to be
doing it [Crowd voice] please wear your masks [Arsenault] And when he didn't they didn't. Listen to the crowd
booing at a new hampshire rally after being told public health rules dictate they put on masks
to observe American political rallies from afar is to presume the act of wearing a mask
is akin to declaring who you're voting for and that's a surprise to those who thought they
had a handle on how the world might respond to a pandemic. [News Host] Infected people got a respiratory illness...
[Arsenault] scientists at Johns Hopkins ran a simulation on a fictional coronavirus last fall
before COVID came calling they envisioned deaths of the vulnerable pain for service industries and
airlines almost everything we've all encountered Dr. Eric Toner led the simulation
[Arsenault] Did you anticipate or build in the idea that public health measures would be deemed political
[Toner] No if we did not anticipate that yeah I would have thought they would they would be off base
[Arsenault] it is so tempting to see what's happening now as a uniquely 2020 thing, think of it a president sick
with a virus that's killing hundreds of thousands of people his doctors evasive on the facts of
his case his administration downplaying health measures while an anti-mask movement is underway
but all of those things have happened before more than a century ago when this man Woodrow Wilson
was the president who got that feared virus. To know that history has repeated so precisely is jarring.
[Taylor] Everything old is new again there was an anti-mask uprising in 1990 during the so-called
spanish flu and the reasons they were voicing then were the same as the reasons now they said well I
didn't think masks worked and they thought it was a violation of their civil liberties
[Arsenault] Then as masks became mandatory in the worst hit places in the U.S. and parts of Canada
anti-mask protests emerged a detail that initially astonished Canadian researcher
Stephen Taylor who wrote about the psychology of pandemics last year he sees a lot of parallels
[Taylor] We've seen the rise of racism the anticipatory anxiety the stockpiling the anti-vaxx attitudes
fake news conspiracy theories, rumors all of those things have been seen before
[Arsenault] So why the need to enforce masks then and now why the hesitation to wear them
Taylor thinks the psychological drivers may not have changed much in a hundred years
not just those who think the virus won't affect them but those who take it further
[Taylor] There's a group which we're calling it's a kind of a covered disregard syndrome when someone tries to
encroach upon their freedoms they react in almost a very strong push back and the people who have
this reactants tend to be anti-maskers they're anti-vax and they want to open up the economy they
don't want to engage in social distancing they also tend to be politically conservative as well
[Arsenault] This is consistent with the makeup of anti-masker crowds in places like Quebec
those rallies often peppered with signs promoting anti-vaccine messaging and conspiracy theories but
it seems there's more to anti-masker protests than that confusing signals from leaders can do
real damage to public confidence [Taylor] early on we were told by the WHO by health authorities do not wear
a mask you do not need to wear a mask save the masks for the healthcare workers and we got that
message for many months and then suddenly there was a complete 180 degree shift and we're told we
have to wear masks so that mistake in messaging can sow the seeds of confusion for many people
[Arsenault] so how do you course correct especially when vaccines become available and doubts rise anew
again look back the mask rebellion of 1919 ultimately fizzled out not just because there
was no social media to spread it but because an overwhelming number of people became sick it was
personal. Public health campaigns became louder more insistent keep that up is the advice.
[Arsenault] So in your scenario how did you overcome misinformation from governments and public distrust
[Toner] Well what are the participants said and they used an American football analogy which is
you need to flood the zone you need to have everybody public health authorities
elected officials everybody just flooding the airwaves with the accurate information
[Arsenault] mocking and shaming aren't advised it may only make people dig in but some countries feel
they have few options in Indonesia those who refuse to wear masks are being ordered to dig
graves for covid patients sometimes get in the graves and just lie there for a while
an Italian legislator was physically removed by colleagues for refusing to wear a mask
In India you cannot make a phone call without hearing a recorded voice urging mask wearing the voice actor
now a bit of a star voice [Host] so this message has become a little irritating
[Arsenault] Definitely annoying but the message sticks as carefully as statisticians collect COVID case numbers
pollsters gauge attitudes especially in the U.S. and for the briefest of moments a few weeks ago
they saw a flash of togetherness an increase in democrats and republicans claiming to take the
virus seriously and to consider more mass use that happened when the president was diagnosed
and all those masks started showing up at the white house modeling matters but that was that
president has since recovered and as the gloves come off in the election run up
so do his masks and the worry is so do theirs