Environment Changes What’s Normal

Until now, I wore a mask only when I caught a cold or had hay fever, and disinfected my hands only when visiting a hospital or when I’d come down with the flu; but now, with the spread of COVID, look around town and most people are wearing masks, and whatever shop you enter, disinfectant is set out. For me too, in this situation, even the sense of being in an emergency has faded—it’s become the norm, and mask-wearing and hand-disinfecting have settled in as daily habits.

Don’t you all have this experience? When you leave home in the morning, you feel you’ve forgotten something, but can’t quite recall it, and set off walking. Then it suddenly strikes you that your mouth feels lonely, and you remember—it was your mask. When, down the road, a COVID vaccine is developed and the fear and anxiety over COVID fade, will masks and disinfectant become unnecessary—or will people, out of a sense of etiquette, go on wearing masks and diligently disinfecting their hands? Which daily life will it be, I wonder?