I don’t like wearing a face mask. My glasses steam up and my nose itches. This reluctance to cover up is apparently shared by most Britons. According to YouGov polls, only 36 per cent of us wear masks in public places, against 90 per cent in Singapore, 85 per cent in Italy, 79 per cent in France, 65 per cent in Germany and, perhaps because Americans were brought up on the Lone Ranger films, 73 per cent in the US.
Numerous theories try to explain such differences: authoritarian regimes in Asia, social solidarity in Continental Europe, for example. The real reason, I suspect, is more mundane. The British summer is short and fickle. We want to feel free from bodily coverings while it lasts. Wearing a mask on a fine July morning feels like wearing boots in the bath. This would explain why, across Scandinavia, where summers are even shorter, fewer than 10 per cent wear masks.
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