Chelsea Handler decided to wear a sports bra made of face masks on an Instagram video recently. She was lifting weights and lunging, and encouraging people to wear face masks. Handler’s trainer, Ben Bruno, shared a photo of the two of them to Instagram, encouraging the wearing of masks. The famous comedian told her followers that kids need to go back to school, health care workers need to stop being abused, and she wants everyone to do their part and wear a mask.
Handler shared a tutorial back in April, showing her viewers how to make a face covering with a bra. She showed us how to turn a bra into a face mask by wearing the cup over the nose and mouth and securing the straps around the face, neck and back of the head.
In her new tongue-in-cheek PSA, she is wearing a face mask over her mouth and nose, along with a sports bra made by knotting a pair of surgical face masks. Known for her quirky sense of humor, Handler chose a very novel way of getting her message across. This video was sure to be seen and sure to be talked about.
Of course, not everyone thought the video was Handler’s best idea and it divided opinion. Some people commented, criticizing the comedian for wasting a pair of face masks which could have been worn properly, but others found the video not only novel and funny but a great message aimed at people who were not wearing masks. Perhaps sacrificing these two face masks can encourage a large number of people to adopt mask-wearing, surely making it a worthwhile exercise.
The Great Mask Debate
The topic of mask-wearing is currently a hot one in the United States. WHO, the CDC and other health experts urge people to wear face masks in public during this pandemic to help stop the spread of Covid-19. According to a press release by the CDC in the Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, cloth face coverings are an effective way of preventing people with Covid-19 spreading it to others. This only works if most people do opt to wear masks, of course.
Since the lockdown began in earnest, back in March, there was a lot of back and forth discussion about the merits of wearing masks, but now the CDC, WHO and top health experts are pushing for masks to be worn when in public. Although there is a mandatory mask policy in place, stores such as Dollar Tree are backing out of insisting masks be worn in stores. The company agrees to follow any city’s ordinances where applicable but says they will not enforce face coverings at their stores. Other stores are set to follow suit, leading to confusion and mixed messages among the public.
Although a recent study suggests 33,000 lives could be saved over the next quarter if everybody in America wore a mask, and the leading health authorities claiming masks work, some people still refuse to don theirs. A small percentage cannot wear a mask because of health reasons, but the majority of non-mask wearers simply choose not to do so and cannot be convinced otherwise.