The more I read, the more I am convinced that masks owe their mass appeal to their associations with hospitals, and especially their use by surgical teams in operating theatres. Prior to the pandemic, this was the only context in which most ordinary westerners would’ve seen a lot of people wearing masks, and hospitals are associated with the highest hygiene standards. In fact, the evidence that surgical masking does anything is every bit as lacking as the evidence that community masking does anything. To the extent that surgeons know this, they continue to mask because they regard the measure as a traditional procedure important to put patients at ease. There has always been a substantial theatrical element to the use of face masks, in other words – first in hospitals, and more recently among the population at large – but nobody can show that it prevents infection.