Serious question: how long does it take for humans to permanently adjust their sense of normalcy? There is a concept of `creeping normality`[0] that gets at this, but there isn't a lot of discussion about how to speed it up and make it permanent.
We know from South Korea that public mask-wearing is probably the most effective form of dropping the R0 quickly. If somehow 100% of Americans could get access to face shields (via 3d printing, for example), then the engineering and logistic problem is solved.
But the bigger problem is the social one. How do you socialize the acceptable use of masks or face shields in everyday public life? If enough people feel enough distress, I could see every person wearing masks, forever. If that happened, the talking points about this dragging on or immediately rebounding start to change.
Given enough technical choices in lifestyle design, there has to be some optimal solution that minimizes droplet emission while maximizing freedom of movement.
We know from South Korea that public mask-wearing is probably the most effective form of dropping the R0 quickly. If somehow 100% of Americans could get access to face shields (via 3d printing, for example), then the engineering and logistic problem is solved.
But the bigger problem is the social one. How do you socialize the acceptable use of masks or face shields in everyday public life? If enough people feel enough distress, I could see every person wearing masks, forever. If that happened, the talking points about this dragging on or immediately rebounding start to change.
Given enough technical choices in lifestyle design, there has to be some optimal solution that minimizes droplet emission while maximizing freedom of movement.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeping_normality