The population can use masks to prevent COVID-19, a respiratory illness spread across the globe. There are multiple advantages to masks that reduce the spread of transmission, such as reminding people to be compliant with other measures in play, decreased exposure risk from infected persons before they develop symptoms, and individual enterprise and community integration. According to current research, the transmission of the virus is through respiratory droplets and contact routes. The droplet transmission of COVID-19 can occur when the infected person sneezes, coughs or has close contact within 1 meter of another person without any protective measures (World Health Organization, 2020). While wearing a mask has been a controversial topic across the globe, political leaders' power and their decision to wear a mask influences societal mask-wearing. Leaders who do not wear a mask may simplify the virus,favour the economy, and imply they are not useful, thus going against public health officials and scientists.
A political leader with a substantial amount of power and influence in the United States of America is President Donald Trump. There have been several occasions where President Trump refused to wear a mask on many occasions, in defiance of public health advisories. On May 5th,2020, Donald Trump visited a mask production factory in Phoenix without a mask. He claimed that he was 'too far' from anyone anyway to have to wear a mask. A few days later, on May 8th,2020, President Trump meets with some Veterans of World War II without a mask, all of who were in their 90s, making them a vulnerable population (Smith, 2020). By not wearing a mask,Donald Trump is simplifying the pandemic, which may lead to his country's population having reduced fears to the point where they don't believe wearing a mask is necessary. By defying public health advisories, Donald Trump is pitting the people against the establishment, an act known as medical populism (Lasco, 2020). Because of Donald Trump's deviant behaviour, many people believe that the science behind COVID-19 is a false allegation, further promoting mask-wearing resistance. On November 26th, 2020, the United States of America has 12.78 million cases of COVID-19, the most amount of cases and the fastest acceleration in the world (Roser et al., 2020). The substantial number of cases is arguably due to Donald Trump's leadership. As he simplified the virus, he favoured the economy and pitted against public health officials and the virus's science.
Another political leader who has refused to wear a mask on several occasions is Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's President. From the moment COVID-19 arose, the President has been downplaying the virus's threat to the population (Lasco, 2020). He has repeatedly appeared in public without a mask and seen not covering his mouth while coughing. Not only did the President appear several times in public without a mask, posing a threat to the Brazilian population, but it also got to the point where he had to be ordered by Federal Judge Renato Borelli to wear a mask. (BBC News,2020). Like Donald Trump, President Jair Bolsonaro chose the economy over the public health advisories in place. He suggested that lives need to be back to normal in a televised address and that we have to face the virus 'like a man.' The suggestion of starting the economy up again during the middle of a pandemic simplifies it, valorizing common sense and first-hand experience over abstract and experience-distant forms of knowledge (Lasco, 2020). Furthermore,just like Trump, Bolsonaro is going against public health officials, suggesting to the public that the scientific evidence behind the virus and their suggestive measures to prevent the spread of transmission is false. Brazil is right after the United States in its number of COVID-19 cases,with 6.12 million people diagnosed to this day (Roser et al., 2020).
In addition to President Trump and President Bolsonaro, the Philippines' political leader, President Rodrigo Duterte, simplified and downplayed the pandemic. The political leader urged the public to clean their reusable cloth masks with gasoline, although there has been no evidence that this works and is against the public health advisories. (BBC, 2020). The recommendation that the President made is an example of an invocating knowledge claim to simplify the pandemic. Going against scientific facts and recommending gasoline, a sample of fake news, a leader once again pits the people against the public health threat. As mentioned, the pitting against public health promotes resistance and uncertainty against mask-wearing. The resistance of mask-wearing is evident in the number of prominent cases in the Philippines, with 422 915 cases, which doesn't sound like a lot compared to Brazil and America, but for their population,this number is substantial (Roser et al., 2020).
There are several reasons why there is a trend in resistance of mask-wearing among the three world leaders. One of these reasons is that the Coronavirus is among a populist movement,which has brought a generation of men that deem themselves masculine and hard being put into power (Pagliari, 2020). On multiple occasions, these leaders have implicated that wearing a mask is a sign of weakness. The community among these leaders expected them to portray this masculine image by not wearing one (Hruby & Bachynski, 2020). Another reason for the resistance to mask-wearing among leaders may be a term known as an epistemic authority. Epistemic authority promotes leaders to view scientists as their opponents because they are threatened by public health and scientists' authority in terms of the virus (Gonsalves & Yamey,2020). Thus, the leaders make their knowledge claims about the pandemic, which resist them from listening to professionals' opinions. Despite these reasons, political leaders choosing not to wear a mask provides an unclear message about mask-wearing, thus increasing the resistance to mask-wearing of the country's population.
The inability that these three political leaders had to wear a face mask in public amid a global pandemic says a lot about their personality and leadership style. Rather than communicating to the people that they are responsible citizens by abiding by public health recommendations and wearing a mask, they are pitting the people against the science and promoting mask-wearing resistance. Political leaders need to understand the impact their actions have on the rest of the population and the consequences of prioritizing votes over health (Pagilari, 2020).
References
BBC. (2020, June 23). Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro ordered to wear mask in public. BBC News.https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-53154890.
BBC. (2020, July 31). Rodrigo Duterte: 'I'm not joking - clean masks with petrol'. (2020, July31). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53605108.
Gonsalves, G., & Yamey, G. (2020, October 6). Political interference in public health scienceduring covid-19. The BMJ. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3878.
Harwood, J. (2020, June 28). Trump's self-defeating resistance to mask wearing says it all. CNN.https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/28/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-fallout/index.html.
Hruby, P. & Bachynski, K. (2020, June 12). “You’re a coward if you try to protect yourself.Public health historian Kathleen Bachynski on the parallel.
Lasco, G. (2020). Medical populism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Global PublicHealth, 15(10), 1417-1429.
Pagliari, C. (2020, June 22). What do world leaders really mean by refusing to wear face masks?Retrieved October 26, 2020, from https://www.ed.ac.uk/covid-19-response/expert-insights/what-messages-are-world-leaders-giving-when-they-r
Roser, M., Ritchie, H., Ortiz-Ospina, E., Hassel, J., (2020). Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19).Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from:https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases
Smith, S. (2020, August 10). Unmasked: How Trump's mixed messaging on face-coverings hurtU.S. coronavirus response. NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/calendar-confusion-february-august-trump-s-mixed-messages-masks-n1236088
World Health Organization. (2020). Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19:interim guidance, 5 June 2020 (No. WHO/2019-nCov/IPC_Masks/2020.4). World Health Organization
Image References
The Guardian. (2020, August 30). Donald Trump v the United States review: how democracycame under assault. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/30/donald-trump-v-the-united-states-review-michael-schmidt.
Phillips, M. (2020, February 6). Jair Bolsonaro: What to know about Brazil's controversialpresident. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/world/who-is-jair-bolsonaro-brazil.
ABC News Network. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte: Everything you need to know. ABCNews. https://abcnews.go.com/International/video/philippine-president-rodrigo-duterte-51066143.