Ecofrugality in the time of COVID, part 2

Today, my weekly "The Goods" newsletter from Vox contained this headline: "Do you really have to wash your mask after every use? Short answer: Yes." This puzzled me, because as far as I know, there's really no evidence to support this particular piece of advice. Think about it for a minute: If you're outside, maintaining a six-foot distance from other people, then there should be no way for their germs to get onto your mask — even onto the outside surface of it — in any detectable amount. Even if you're in a store and coming within six feet of other people, as long as they're all wearing masks too — which, by law, they have to be here in New Jersey — then their germs shouldn't be getting onto your mask.

Even if there's still a tiny, theoretical risk that germs could somehow get onto your mask just from briefly passing someone else on the street, that risk is no greater for your mask than for the rest of your clothes. Yet no one is suggesting that you have to immediately take off and wash all your clothes after coming inside and then wash your hands and change into clean clothes, lest the germs from your clothes somehow get onto your hands and from there into your body. This kind of precaution makes sense if you're a doctor who's been in contact with sick people all day, but I haven't heard anyone advocating it for ordinary people just going out for a walk or a trip to the store. So why is it necessary for masks?

On top of that, based on what we now know about the virus, it seems that COVID isn't likely to spread through contact with objects at all. The CDC website now says, "The primary and most important mode of transmission for COVID-19 is through close contact from person-to-person," and while it adds that "it may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes," I'm not aware of any evidence that the virus actually does spread this way.

In fact, according to one idea floated last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, one benefit of masks could actually be that they don't block out every single virus. The authors speculated that wearing masks that screen out some, but not all, viral particles could allow people to become inoculated against the virus through low-dose exposure, increasing the chances that their immune system will learn to recognize it without their actually needing to be exposed to enough of it to make them sick. Granted, this hypothesis hasn't been and probably can't be tested, but if it's right, it would mean that being hyper-sensitive about washing masks after every use is not only unnecessary but counterproductive.

Even the Vox article itself conceded that, since surface transmission isn't common, "The recommendation to wash your mask comes out of an abundance of caution." And yet the headline sends exactly the opposite message: You must, yes MUST, wash your mask EVERY SINGLE TIME you use it. And you must not touch it at all while wearing it. And when removing it, you must touch only the ear loops, not the surface. And you must immediately wash your hands afterwards. And you mustn't wear that mask again until it's been washed — and oh, by the way, a mask will only remain effective for about 50 washings, or 100 if it's air-dried. After that, you have to buy a new one.

Reading this article really pissed me off, and at first I wasn't sure why. I mean, sure, what they're recommending may be unnecessary, but is it really harmful? How can "an abundance of caution" be a bad thing?

Thinking it over, I discovered the main thing that bothers me about this: It's anti-ecofrugal.

Consider: if you have to wear a fresh mask every time you go out (not to mention putting on a fresh one if yours gets wet from rain, sweat, or exhaled moisture), then you have two choices. First, you can wear disposable masks, which use up more resources and create more waste than cloth ones. Or, second, you can have a large enough supply of reusable masks to wear a fresh one (or two) every day between loads of laundry. This, in turn, means you either have to buy your masks by the dozen or wash your clothes every couple of days, doing smaller loads if necessary, to ensure you always have a clean one. And even if you have a different mask for every day of the week, you'll still need to invest in new ones after a year, since they're no good after 50 washings. No matter what you choose, you have to spend more money and use more resources than if you simply had two or three masks and wore the same one until it got dirty.

And here's the thing: I would still be willing to do all this, even though it goes against my environmental instincts, if there were clear evidence that, by doing so, I would be helping to contain the virus. In that case, I would see it as a worthwhile sacrifice, much like not seeing my friends in person for months and not touching anyone outside my family and crossing the street every time I come near another person on the sidewalk. But in fact, there is no clear evidence that this abundantly cautious behavior makes a difference. Wearing masks absolutely makes a difference. But there's no evidence that requiring fresh masks every time makes more of a difference than reusing the same mask.

And this is just one way out of many that ecofrugal behaviors are being actively discouraged, if not outright banned, during this pandemic for little or no benefit. I still can't take my reusable cup to Starbucks (though I could if I lived in Europe, Africa, or the Middle East); I have to take a single-use cup that can never be recycled. I still can't take a reusable bag to Trader Joe's; every time I shop there, I have to take one or more of their paper bags, which are even worse for the environment than single-use plastic ones. Despite the increasing evidence that COVID does not spread through contact with objects, businesses are continuing to require practices that are bad for the environment and unlikely to have any effect on health — focusing even more on them than on practices that do actually help, like limiting the number of customers in the store at a time.

Moreover, the cost to the environment isn't the only problem these strict policies create. For example, much as I dislike the added cost of buying more masks and doing more laundry, I can at least afford it. But there are many people, even in this wealthy nation, who can't easily afford it, especially with unemployment as high as it is now. For these people, these strict guidelines are a serious hardship — one that could make them less willing to wear masks at all. After all, if the only right way to wear a mask is to wear a clean one every time you leave the house, and to keep it on continuously until you return home, and to avoid touching it at all, and to change it (while somehow not touching it) any time it gets wet, and to take it off as soon as you get home and then wash your hands immediately, then if there's any single one of those rules you can't comply with, you're liable to think, "Well, wearing a mask is just impossible for me." By trying to get Americans to adhere to the strictest possible guidelines "out of an abundance of caution," these doctors may actually be making us all less safe by reducing compliance.

Let me be absolutely clear about this: I am not taking an extreme libertarian stance against all steps people, businesses, and governments are taking to contain the virus. I am absolutely for any measures to do so that truly are supported by the science, such as wearing masks, maintaining physical distance, and contact tracing. What I can't get behind is imposing rules that have no science behind them, that reduce the chances people will comply with the rules that do have science behind them, and that waste money and natural resources in the process.