The problem with mandatory face masks

Last week the Prime Minister was photographed oafishly browsing in an Uxbridge shop, wearing a lurid blue mask. In the past, he has defended the right of people to go around looking like letterboxes; in kind we should uphold his right to go around looking like an attenuated Smurf. Aesthetic eccentricity has always been his strong suit.

Personally, I wouldn’t be seen dead in a face mask and from tomorrow will be resisting the imposition to wear one. Before you think ‘here goes another civil libertarian nutjob’ let me immediately state that the argument against personal liberty in favour of masking up is redundant. Mask advocates have used it to proclaim their righteousness whilst decrying the selfishness of detractors. But a reliance on abstraction obscures an important ethical dimension of the situation.

The government’s own guidance for shops, dated 9 July, says that ‘It is important to know that the evidence of the benefit of using a face covering to protect others is weak and the effect is likely to be small.’