This really is BIG!
So Japan finally decided to do something about the masks, especially as more and more people started to complain about being “recommended” to wear a mask everywhere. We’ll get back on the recommended part soon. In almost all other countries, the mask rules only still apply for hospitals and other medical institutions, however in Japan, it still counts for almost all places. But starting today, this will change!
Recommendation …
To not make people feel like they are being forced to wear a mask, it never got made into a rule and was simply a recommendation from the government, leaving it up to individual places and people to decide what’s best for them. However, most people by now know that this was basically rule. People followed without asking too many questions. Recently on television as well, people don’t talk about it as it was a recommendation, nearly all TV channels call it a “rule” …
New rules/recommendations?
However you want to call this, rules or recommendations, the fact stays that the Japanese government is finally doing something about it. Starting from March 13th, the day of writing this article, the Japanese government won’t recommend wearing masks anymore inside as well, previously they removed the recommendation for outside. From May 8th they will also lower to level to a normal flu level, something other countries have started doing kind of a long time ago.
Will anything change?
So these are the rules which came out last month and so far, I’ve been seeing steady progress to places easing restrictions, there have also been places which refuse to change anything but those will get outnumbered soon if the speed at which other places are changing continues. The kindergarten where I teach have been removing masks from the students since last month, it’s now up to the parents and kids if they want to wear a mask or not, surprisingly enough, 90% aren’t wearing masks anymore.
In the streets leading up to the 13th I’ve been noticing more and more people without masks walking around, even in malls the number of people wearing masks is going down. Big malls have stopped offering alcohol at the entrances and a lot of shops and other places are going through their last few sanitizing alcohol bottles before also stopping to offer it, my workplace included.
The BIG but …
One way that this whole move to a mask free Japan may stop or at least make it take longer is pollen season. Many people keep wearing their mask nowadays only for the pollen season. There are also many people who just plainly like covering their face. If these people are in large numbers, then others who want to remove their masks may not do it because they would stand out too much.
This may not sound like a giant problem, but it very well could be as people are kind of followers and will just copy what others do.
There is hope!
Luckily we also still have May 8th, the day that the level goes down to a normal flu level. Some companies, especially food shops and similar services, are waiting for their staff to put down the masks until this date. At that time pollen season will be mostly over and temperatures will get too warm again for people to comfortably wear a mask. So these are our 2 chances to a mask free Japan! 😀 At least for the people who don’t want to wear a mask anymore, people who prefer a mask, go ahead and wear them, just don’t force other people to do so too. ^^”
My opinion
I said this in the video, but I feel like I need to say this again:
I honestly don’t care if people wear a mask or not. If people want to wear a mask, then go ahead. If people want to remove their masks, go ahead.
I personally have been feeling out of breath and more stressed the past few years because of the masks so I will probably remove my mask. The whole idea of being forced to do something which was never really tested always kind of bothered me. But there has been soo much misinformation these days that I don’t know what to trust anymore. Does it actually help to not get sick?
Does it have any negative effects on your body of having less oxygen enter your body for such long periods of time? I don’t know and I don’t want people to tell me about it unless there has been sufficient research about it.
This is just my opinion, everybody is free to have their own as well.