A Beginner’s Guide to Wearing a Mask

Wearing a mask can be awfully complicated for some and a real struggle for others. If you’re having trouble wearing one, we’ve put together a guide to wearing a mask

1. A mask, more specifically, a mask that’s designed to protect you and others from an airborne virus, is traditionally worn over the mouth and the nose. You’ll find those on the front of your face, just underneath your eyes, or just above your chin, if you have one.

2. A mask is usually made of soft material. Theoretically, some masks could be made of lead or steel but these would be very heavy and be very uncomfortable to wear.

3. The idea of the mask is to stop microscopic (which means ‘very small’) particles passing from one person to another. If you are carrying a virus, a mask can stop it spreading to other people that you meet. It also protects you from being infected by others if they have the virus. A virus is a nasty thing that makes you very poorly. Over the last year, lots of people have caught a virus and made them very ill.

4. To wear a mask properly, and to make sure that it works effectively, you have to place the mask over both your nose and your mouth. Those are the bits that we spoke about a little earlier. Most masks are attached to your face with a loop, that passes behind your ears. You’ll find your ears on the side of your head. These are used for listening to things.

5. At present, you have to wear a mask when you go into a shop. A shop is a place that sells things like food and stuff. Some people like to wear their masks just over their mouths when they go shopping. These can look quite comical because as we mentioned earlier, it defeats the whole object of wearing a mask. These people can sometimes be called ‘Covidiots’, which is an amalgamation (joining together) of the word ‘Covid’ (which is a virus) and the word ‘idiot’, which is another word for ‘arsehole’.

6. Some masks are called disposable masks. These are masks that you can throw away after you have used them because that’s what the word disposable means. Some masks you can re-use and these are called re-usable masks. That means that you can use them more than once.

7. Hollywood actor was recently asked to leave a store because he wasn’t wearing a mask. That’s because he could have been carrying a virus (remember, that the nasty thing we were talking about earlier) and he could have passed it to other people. Even celebrities can catch a virus because, like the rest of us, they are just human too.

8. Masks can’t totally stop you getting a virus but they can help. Some people can’t wear masks because of medical reasons and they can be exempt. But that’s ok. The more people can wear masks, the sooner the virus will go away and we can all go back to life as we used to know it.

Next Week: A Beginner’s Guide To Changing Channels On Your TV