Societal attitudes in Canada and the U.S. toward wearing masks in public as protection against COVID-19 have undergone an “unprecedented’ shift in just a matter of months, some social psychologists say.
“As somebody who studies social norms, it’s astonishing. It’s like a flip in a blink of an eye in terms of this change,” said Catherine Sanderson, a social psychology professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
“I actually think that’s because of the unprecedented nature of what happened. And so I think what we’ve seen is that this is just an unprecedented time. And that’s something that leads to very, very fast shifts.”
In some East Asian countries, mask wearing has been recommended or required since the start of the pandemic.
It’s already an accepted practice in some countries, including China, South Korea and Japan, to wear masks when one is sick or to protect against infection during cold and flu seasons or to protect against air pollution.
And while the effectiveness of masks continues to be a source of debate within the scientific community, more people are embracing the idea in the U.S. and Canada, a number of surveys reveal.
Health Canada has said homemade masks might reduce the spread of the wearer’s infectious droplets to others but may not provide complete protection against “virus-sized particles,” in part because of variations in the way they fit and the materials people are using to make them and their relative potential to block those particles.
N95 respirators, which are recommended primarily for health-care workers, on the other hand, can protect the wearer against respiratory viruses, such as the novel coronavirus, when they are worn correctly and form a seal around the nose and mouth.
WATCH | What you need to know before wearing a mask:
Dr. Samir Gupta provides crucial information about wearing a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic and what to think about before putting one on. 2:30
Surge in Canadians wearing masks
In a two-week period in April, the percentage of Canadians wearing some sort of a protective mask in public rose from one-fifth to one-third, according to an online poll of 2,015 Canadians commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies, a non-profit organization.
Another recent online poll conducted May 6 by DART & Maru/Blue found that 65 per cent of the 1,513 randomly selected Canadians surveyed agreed they must wear a mask or face covering whenever they are outside the home and among other people. And 81 per cent said that a person must wear a mask at all times in barber shops, hair salons and nail salons.
In the United States, polls have also revealed surge-like support for wearing masks.
“It’s fascinating in two months how much behaviour can change and really turn on a dime,” said Toni Schmader, a social psychology professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
The U.S.-based online marketplace Etsy says its total sales doubled in April, in large part due to face mask sales. (Etsy)
Not only are individuals opting to wear masks, a growing number of retailers are requiring or requesting shoppers wear a face covering in their stores. And starting Monday, Uber will require all drivers and passengers wear masks.
Meanwhile, stores such as Old Navy and the Disney Store are selling fashion masks. The U.S.-based online marketplace Etsy says its total salesdoubled in April, in large part because of face mask sales, The Verge website reported.
This increased demand for masks is in part likely the result of a number of health officials declaring the importance of wearing masks in public. In the U.S. and Canada, there were two key policy shifts. At the beginning of the pandemic, neither the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor Canada’s chief public health officer, Theresa Tam, had advocated the use of masks in public.
New wisdom on masks
But in early April, the CDC, followed by Tam days later, said that new studies on the subject prompted a shift in mask advice. The agency now recommends the use of face masks in public places where physical distancing is difficult to maintain.
Shortly after the CDC announcement, Gallup found that the percentage of Americans who reported that they had worn a mask outside of their homes has increased from 38 per cent to 62 per cent in just one week.
“Wearing a mask is new. It’s different. It’s not something that most of us have done. But what we also know is that behaviour can change very, very fast under particular circumstances,” Sanderson said.
“What we know is that when there’s clear health evidence, things change very fast.”
About 25 per cent of the population needs to engage in an activity in order for the majority of people to change their behaviour, she said.
WATCH | How much protection do gloves and masks provide?:
‘The point of the mask,’ says Christopher Labos, ‘is to protect others from you,’ especially if you are an asymptomatic carrier of the virus. 2:58
‘Creates the tipping point’
“And that creates the tipping point. So, you don’t need everybody to do it, but you need enough people to do it so you sway it.”
As well, you need particular people doing that new behaviour, she said.
“You really do need role models, whether that’s celebrities or presidents, prime ministers, athletes, actors — you need people who are sort of trend setters, social Influencers, but at a broader level.”
Stores like The Disney Store and Old Navy are responding to consumer demand and selling fashionable masks. (The Disney Store)
Schmader agreed that a significant key in changing behaviour of individuals is having them feel like the norms of people around them support that behaviour.
“Because a lot of times the things that we know are good for us still don’t motivate our own behaviour. Unless we see everyone else doing it.“
She said wearing seatbelts, although mandated by the government, was behaviour that people readily adapted to in a fairly shot period of time.
However, Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies, said the poll the association commissioned indicated that fear and anxiety are what’s prompting more people in Canada to wear masks.
“I think health officials encouraging you to wear masks gives it more legitimacy,” he said. “At the same time, I think it’s the degree to which you are fearful of getting the contagion that probably is more of a determining factor.”
If you chose to wear a reusable mask make sure to follow these steps. (CBC)
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
Google, Meta and TikTok have removed social media accounts belonging to an industrial plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region aimed at recruiting young foreign women to make drones for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were taken down following an investigation by The Associated Press published Oct. 10 that detailed working conditions in the drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, which is under U.S. and British sanctions.
Videos and other posts on the social media platforms promised the young women, who are largely from Africa, a free plane ticket to Russia and a salary of more than $500 a month following their recruitment via the program called “Alabuga Start.”
But instead of a work-study program in areas like hospitality and catering, some of them said they learned only arriving in the Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with AP, some of the women who worked in the complex complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching. AP did not identify them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
The tech companies also removed accounts for Alabuga Polytechnic, a vocational boarding school for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production.
The accounts collectively had at least 158,344 followers while one page on TikTok had more than a million likes.
In a statement, YouTube said its parent company Google is committed to sanctions and trade compliance and “after review and consistent with our policies, we terminated channels associated with Alabuga Special Economic Zone.”
Meta said it removed accounts on Facebook and Instagram that “violate our policies.” The company said it was committed to complying with sanctions laws and said it recognized that human exploitation is a serious problem which required a multifaceted approach, including at Meta.
It said it had teams dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts and aimed to remove those seeking to abuse its platforms.
TikTok said it removed videos and accounts which violated its community guidelines, which state it does not allow content that is used for the recruitment of victims, coordination of their transport, and their exploitation using force, fraud, coercion, or deception.
The women aged 18-22 were recruited to fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia. They are from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive also is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
Accounts affiliated to Alabuga with tens of thousands of followers are still accessible on Telegram, which did not reply to a request for comment. The plant’s management also did not respond to AP.
The Alabuga Start recruiting drive used a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.
Videos also showed them enjoying Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports. None of the videos made it clear the women would be working in a drone manufacturing complex.
Online, Alabuga promoted visits to the industrial area by foreign dignitaries, including some from Brazil, Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, a Turkish diplomat who visited the plant had compared Alabuga Polytechnic to colleges in Turkey and pronounced it “much more developed and high-tech.”
According to Russian investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some pupils at Alabuga Polytechnic are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.
Videos previously on the platforms showed the vocational school students in team-building exercises such as “military-patriotic” paintball matches and recreating historic Soviet battles while wearing camouflage.
Last month, Alabuga Start said on Telegram its “audience has grown significantly!”
That could be due to its hiring of influencers, who promoted the site on TikTok and Instagram as an easy way for young women to make money after leaving school.
TikTok removed two videos promoting Alabuga after publication of the AP investigation.
Experts told AP that about 90% of the women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work in drone manufacturing.
