Not content with the obligatory face masks that the world has been made to wear, US epidemiologist Michael Edmond states full face shields offer more effective protection against Coronavirus and should be worn by the public whenever they leave home.
Edmond, an infectious diseases physician and hospital epidemiologist in Iowa City, USA, has been advocating the use of face shields on his blog. He believes the devices are more effective than masks at protecting the eyes, nose and mouth from Covid-19 infection and praised efforts by architects and designers to manufacture the devices as "one of the silver linings of this pandemic".
"I think every person should have a face shield," Edmond told website Dezeen. "It should be worn anytime they leave their home, while in any public place, and even at work." Adding ”I believe that if every person wore a face shield when out of their home, we would bend the curve faster and return to normal life sooner."
On his blog Edmond sports the type of face-shields he advocates, something that looks like a cross between Darth Vader’s helmet and a Welder’s Mask. Impractical, unnecessary and ridiculous.
Another such effort Edmond would praise is that by Berlin-based art collective; Plastique Fantastique (main photo) who have created what they describe as a 'retro-futuristic' face shield and what everyone else would describe as 'absolutely mental'. The designers claim they found inspiration in science fiction comics of the 1950s, as well as visuals from "utopian movements" of the 1960s. For 'utopian' read: dystopian, because nobody in their right mind would want to live with their head stuck in a goldfish bowl.
The 'inspiration' they talk about may well be from another German; author Ernst Jünger who predicted the ubiquitousness of face masks to enforce conformity and uniformity in a dystopian future society in a novel called The Worker, published nearly 90 years ago.
Face masks now becoming a mandatory part of the “new normal,” and enforcement measures to make people wear them (by both agents of the state and members of the public) have the inevitable effect of dehumanising us all.
This is precisely the scenario envisaged by Jünger in his 1932 novel. Indeed eradication of all individuality is a running theme of all dystopian literature. This is expressed by George Orwell in 1984 who describes the masses as, “a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans…three hundred million people all with the same face.”
We previously gave a list of dystopian traits that were all either becoming, or had become, real; face shields can now be added to them.
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