Why do you think masking is more prevalent in the US and Canada compared to Europe?

I am in one of the most politically progressive areas in the US and masking is absolutely not common here, nor is it common anywhere else I have traveled in the US. I’m thrilled if I see anyone with a mask other than myself.

I'm in Canada and I mask up all the time but I rarely see anyone else with a mask on. Covid isn't over and is still raging here: I just lost my dad to it. I hate our government for acting like covid is a thing of the past.

I have noticed this too. As few and far between as masks are here in Southern California, there are a lot more than I saw in England in 2022.

My hypothesis is that this too is a byproduct of a difference in individualist vs collectivist cultures. Early in the pandemic, European populations were much more united in enacting preventative measures than were American populations, were many more held to individualist notions defying the zeitgeist of the time by refusing to mask, isolate, get vaccinated, etc.. However, as societal values have changed and covid has been taken less and less seriously globally, being more collectivist, European populations have largely relaxed their behavior in unison. Once critical mass is reached, masking becomes not a collectivist act but an individual one - a defiance of sorts against the prevailing social behavior. At this point the tables turn and it becomes easier to continue to mask in a more individualist society. In a sense, masking is an affirmation that despite the words of many health authorities to the contrary, Covid is still dangerous and a decision to take on a personal responsibility to avoid harm. This sort of thinking is just a bit more alien to more collectivist societies which value harmony and conformity than it is to more individualist societies, both for better and for worse as we have seen.

It goes to show that there are both upsides and downsides to different sorts of social mentalities.

UK here - the UK had "freedom day", the day they stopped requiring masks in healthcare, in the summer of 2021. Mask mandates everywhere else were already long gone by then. Our government told everyone it was over, and pushed that propaganda hard, a while before the US and Canada did. And of course in the UK, healthcare still refuses to admit covid is airborne, so they don't have to buy appropriate PPE for HCWs, and if it's not airborne, you don't need a mask.

Edited to change the year, I originally put 2022.

I have lived both in Europe and in South America (where I am from) for the past 4 years. From what I have seen and heard people saying, in Europe people trust their governments more (than in SA, and maybe the US and Canada?). So most of them genuinely think that if the government says it's ok to unmask, it is. Likewise, when masks were mandatory in some places, over 90% of people complied because they though that was what was right. In some countries most people have heard about Long COVID (I saw huge posters taking about it) but they seem to trust both their own luck (or healthy life style or whatever) as well as the medical system for avoiding/ curing it.

In SA people don't trust the government or the health system as much, which meant a lower compliance rate when masking was mandatory but also that people didn't stop masking as soon as officers said it was ok to do it. I still see more people masking in Colombia than I did in Austria, Italy, Spain, and Hungary in 2022-2023. However, those who still do it are not very well informed (and mostly use surgical masks). Long COVID is NOT common knowledge (partly, I think, because of language barriers). They have come to the conclusion that masking is "kind of helpful" for not getting sick with respiratory things on their own, and are not very religious about it.

Could it be that in the US and Canada there is also a lower trust + more information about the dangers of COVID? Maybe a stronger presence of disability activism could also have something to do with it?

Here in Quebec, Canada, I went to the ER last week and almost 75% of the staff wear a mask, it was nice to see

I think part of it could be exposure to Covid "content" online. A large amount of Covid discourse and online communities are in the US and Canada. While the internet connects people all over the world, what you see it still is largely location dependent. Most of the studies and stories you hear come out of those two places so if you're not from there or make an effort to interact online with people from there you're not gonna get the same info.

Also, vast majority of it is in English. While of course many Europeans speak/understand English, there's many that don't and– again location dependency– they're probably not consuming as much Covid "content" in their own language and a lot of Covid "content" is harder to obtain in other languages.

In general and quite frankly, Covid consciousness is primary an online thing. If you're not online like that you're really not gonna know about Covid tbh and even then you need to be in the right online corner. This corner is pretty niche if I'm being honest.

This is my thoughts though I could be wrong of course

I’m American but I live in Southern Europe. Anecdotally, there’s a lot more masking in the US, especially in “blue” places, than there is in Europe. We were recently in SF and I saw an astounding # of masks on people - even outside. It was heartening.

But the places I’ve seen the least masking are Britain and France. Where I am, older folks still occasionally wear baggy blues, but that’s about it. We are absolute weirdos out and about in our N95s.

As a European who moved to Canada just before the plague I'm absolutely mindf*cked about it myself. I'd never ever ever in a million years imagine Europe would be doing so much worse of a job with something like that than North America. It makes zero sense.

Speaking for myself at least in the US I'm acutely aware of how unaccessible and collapsing our healthcare system is, so for me and maybe others in the US I wonder if there's a sense of like I better fucking take care of myself bc I know no one else will. I know not every country in Europe has a perfect healthcare system, far from it, but this was the first thing that came to mind.

Most (~95%) of English people seem to think that either;

1) Covid is over 2) Covid is just a cold now 3) Covid was a big scam

Even the millions of people with obvious long covid have not connected the dots and blame their fatigue/diabetes/asthma/heart problems/skin problems on something else (immunity debt/lockdown/vaccines etc)

As for immune dysregulation, English people seem to think that it is normal to be sick for 1 week of every month, or have recurring pneumonia, a hacking cough for 3 months or to have their kids regularly visit A&E.

Why do people think these things? Pretty much all the press is now owned, funded or run by Right Wing/fascists. People are being spoon fed their lies via the press, TV, and social media. The NHS are telling everyone that as long as you wash your hands regularly you will be fine. 🤣

I've had a few conversations with people in Europe who basically talk to me like covid is still an issue in my life because the US is "full of stupid people" but it's been solved and dealt with in their country because they're clearly better than us. So there's that.

i’m not sure about the data behind this, but one of my best friends is european. she recently visited and explained this exact thing to me, at least from her and her friends back home perspectives.

a lot of people don’t see it as a problem anymore, they legitimately don’t think about it. my bestfriend had covid really bad initially, she had to be hospitalized but you’d never know it, given how little she thinks about COVID in her everyday life.

she explained that back home when someone has a mask on you assume they’re sick and kinda stay away from them. she said people don’t flat out harass you like they do here in the states, as she witnessed someone coughing at us in retaliation for wearing a mask. she was in that moment, as she put it, gobsmacked. she just doesn’t think of it or find it to be a problem anymore. mostly her and her friends think it’s over, and when they present with symptoms they chalk it up to nothing more than a random cold. she explained that this is the philosophy of most people she knows.

maybe it’s less prevalent there, i can’t be sure. but if it is, it could possibly be due to the belief that you only wear them when you’re sick and only when/if you feel like it’s necessary.

For France, because the vaccination campaign was a success. It was the pretext to remove masking mandates (it was even advertised as such!), then to pretend covid was no big deal anymore. Once people stopped thinking of covid, of course they stopped masking, and vaccinating too eventually.

I work for a very large UK-based company but I'm in the US. I spend 6 hours a day interacting with folks in England, Wales and Scotland. The general sense I get is my UK-based peers abide by the 'stay home if you feel unwell' mantra and covid is just background noise to almost all of those I talk to, and more or less treat it in the rear-view mirror.

An English coworker just yesterday said his wife currently has covid and isn't doing great, but she's a doctor and that's to be expected so she comes home with covid every few months now and is resigned to it. My jaw dropped and couldn't imagine the aggregate damage she's doing to her body with multiple covid infections each year. Most of those I've talked to haven't had more than the original series of vaccines. These coworkers are getting sicker and sicker as time has gone on and it's noticeable. They're out sick more often than 2 years ago, have lingering effects of illness for far longer, and some of them seem 'less sharp' mentally than they used to be. None of them appear to be putting two-and-two together. A manager I work with was out for 2 weeks with presumed covid around Christmas and he still has a lingering cough every time he talks (5 months later).

UK folks are definitely better at taking time off if they're sick compared to us in the US who try to 'muscle through' the illness. But there's a very, very noticeable decline in my coworkers even accounting for that difference. The NHS also don't provide paxlovid to most people and restricts vaccines to the most at-risk crowds, meaning that aggregate damage seems to be accumulating in their younger population faster than those I see in the US (even those who think covid is over / isn't real / etc. in the US will still get paxlovid or other treatments if they're unwell).

In the US a lot of my friends who largely don't think about covid take it relatively seriously when there's a surge happening, or see the benefit of vaccination even if they aren't staying up to date with the news or rushing to get the latest booster. Even those at work who are more of the 'covid isn't a big deal' crowd seem to take it a bit more seriously than those in the UK.

I think it's a combination of a few things: historically, Europe has had very much an obsession with "man over nature" and imagines that with enough strong will it can curb the natural world, including viruses, to its will. Magical thinking of course but it really is a thing. You'll often hear people say "I do not get sick", with a proud grin on their face, as if it was down to personal achievement. Then there's also a long tradition of naturalist health movements, dating back to the 19th Century, that have convinced people that exercise and good diet are enough to keep good health, and actually the only things that do. So as most people in Europe do exercise and have a reasonably good diet, there's this underlying belief that they cannot get sick, that sickness is something for the weakminded. Add to that colonial-level arrogance about epidemics being a thing of the past and for other regions of the world, and you get the perfect storm for anti-mask wearing and covid denial.

They have universal health care so they don't have to be nearly as concerned. We don't. If we get sick and disabled, we will lose our jobs, our healthcare, our savings, our homes, etc. I've read about families getting ruined over healthcare costs related to Long COVID.

The United States is very diverse. White people are the least likely to mask.

Peer pressure is higher in Europe

I'm from the area in France where it started in 2020 (north east) and yet people live as if nothing ever happened. They just don't think about it anymore. My parents and I are the only people I know that mask. A few months ago I saw a couple at the hardware store wearing FFP2 masks and that's all. No one since, even during the numerous times I had to go to hospitals.

No one is reporting anything COVID related and hardly anyone reported on the chronic effects of COVID. The NHS was taken over early by Great Barrington Declaration people and they've been treating COVID like a bother. Don't forget that similar anti mask/chaos sowing agents are also working over in Europe. I remember the Dutch who were burning 5g masts in 2020. I think there was a lot more havoc in the US at the beginning that some still remember now.

"Progressive Europe" is a decades-old myth, not reality. There is an extremely powerful right-wing and extreme-right bent in European politics and culture, including in increasingly fascistic northern EU countries that American liberals still pretend are some sort of social democratic fantasy land. That this extends to public health measures, masking etc. should be no surprise.

I was surprised Sweden took a dump on CoViD in 2020…

Yeah you'd think so....you'd be wrong.
Most EU countries are ableist to the point they barely even know the meaning of the word.

Masking also helps with the wildfire smoke, and I think our pollen and dust are worse in some regions. A lot of us figured out that out allergies and asthma got better from wearing masks.

I think there are many reasons. A very important one being that we do not have institutional welfare like Canada and Europe.. Sure, there's a lot to be desired with Canada's healthcare and structure especially, but we don't have a guarantee of healthcare. We could go bankrupt if we get sick and can't afford it. Or, just die. We don't have mandated paid sick days as a country either. A lot compounds. My mask is the only thing that makes me feel safe, really.

Not to be contrarian, but: are you sure, and do you have data? Most of the stories I hear about mask harassment are from the north americas for example (also quite a few from the UK - but that's an outlier in many ways). I haven't walked around a typical north american city, but I see at least a few masks most times I walk around my small town in Europe - and it's the same if I take a train anywere. It's probably easier to find social media postings of maskers from North America because of the homogenous language, but that doesn't prove much.

I'd be genuinely curious about how it compares, all I'm saying is I haven't seen convincing proof that there is more masking in north america yet.

Masking is not a progressive value. The left is just as intolerant of it as the right.

I don't think theres any one particular area that has more masking, and if we are talking about covid safety, its the cities with strong covid-safe communities that probably have a prevalence. I saw people masking often when I lived in Atlanta

It's not. Your fundamental assumption is incorrect.