Covid-19: what if the mask was a tool of seduction?

Are you for wearing a mask? Mandatory or not, it all depends on your country of residence, the mask has become in just two years an essential accessory intended to limit the spread of Covid-19. But it is also considered a troublesome everyday tool, and many studies have even pointed to several of its harmful effects, particularly in terms of social interactions.

Different perception

Worn long before the health crisis in some countries, the mask has never been associated with seduction, quite the contrary. Its image refers rather to the disease. A team of researchers from the University of Cardiff, Wales, wanted to know if the pandemic had changed the situation. Well, yeah ! The mask would ultimately make us more attractive…

For the purposes of the study, the scientists asked about forty participants to evaluate, on a scale of 1 to 10, the attractiveness of images of male faces: without a mask, then with surgical or fabric masks. , or with a black book flanked in front of the face. The result is clear: women were first of all seduced by male faces wearing a surgical mask, then in fabric… much more in any case than those who wore no mask.

A sense of security

The study tells us that this change in perception could be linked to the feeling of security that the mask sends back today, but also to the fact that it conceals undesirable elements of the lower part of the face, such as acne for example. . A finding that could push more than one not to drop the mask.

Towards wearing the FFP2 mask?

If surgical masks have entered our daily lives, this is much less the case with FFP2. More protective, they are nevertheless recommended in certain circumstances in the face of the significant contagiousness of the Omicron variant, as confirmed on January 2 last Karine Lacombe of the infectious diseases department of the Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, to our colleagues from LCI: “The FFP2 mask has a higher filtering power than the surgical mask. It protects us, ourselves, from being affected by the people in front of us. The surgical mask protects quite well from infection that could be transmitted“.

However, on January 10, the High Council for Public Health (HCSP) decided and it was Olivier Véran who revealed his decision, explaining that “we would not go towards a general extension of the wearing of the FFP2 mask“but that he would remain”reserved for nursing staff and among patients, for people who have severe forms“.