The other day, I went to an upscale traditional restaurant with my papa. He showed up wearing a face shield and medical gloves instead of a mask, and people around us did double takes, which was embarrassing. I do think he was taking thorough precautions against infection, but I’d feel embarrassed if he kept coming in a face shield and medical gloves. What would be the best way to handle this?

I’m Dai, a male member. He probably just doesn’t want to catch COVID—nothing more than that. I’ve also heard that some men wear masks while receiving services at adult establishments. In the end, it comes down to whether you can stop worrying about what people around you think. They might be doing a double take simply because they’re thinking, “Those two are doing papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan),” haha.

I’m Maezawa from the CEO’s office, and I’ll answer as well. These days, I feel it’s probably better not to say anything about this sort of thing. If you’re uncomfortable with it, I think you should avoid eating together or choose another way to meet. For example, because of COVID, we’re in a situation where we’re expected to wear masks. But if you think about it normally, viruses are much smaller than the gaps between the fibers in a mask, so they pass through even when you’re wearing one. And yet people say we should wear masks—it’s hard to see the point. What purpose does a mask serve if viruses can pass through it almost 100% of the time? (In reality, masks may help prevent droplets, and I assume that’s the benefit people are counting on. But I think most people mistakenly believe masks block the virus itself.) Still, no matter how much you say that, wearing a mask is considered the norm, so we’re in a situation where you have to wear one even if it doesn’t seem meaningful. Thinking about it that way, as the questioner says, a face shield is “thorough” because air doesn’t pass through the shield itself, so viruses don’t pass through it either. (That said, it isn’t sealed, so viruses and air can probably escape through the uncovered areas. But if we consider that viruses pass through a mask while they don’t pass through the shield itself, its effectiveness is far greater than that of a mask.) So can we really reject a shield that’s more effective than a mask simply because it’s embarrassing? It starts to sound like telling someone not to wear a mask because doing so would be rude to the other person. In Japan, though, it’s less about whether something is effective and more about doing it because everyone else does. There’s a culture of believing that it’s fine to do the same thing as everyone else, even if it isn’t effective. So I can understand how the questioner feels, but I do wonder whether it’s right to reject the more effective option just because it’s embarrassing. Of course, unless people are required to wear proper protective masks that prevent viruses from passing through, viruses can’t really be blocked. But when you take that line of thinking to its logical conclusion, it starts to seem more effective to go out without a mask and simply limit your activities as much as possible, rather than wearing a mask that viruses can pass through and then acting as though you’re safe. And if you take it even further, you end up back at the question: Do we even need masks in the first place? I’ve gone off on a tangent, but thinking about it that way, you could simply leave things as they are, reasoning that wearing a mask is actually more embarrassing since viruses still pass through it. Or you could avoid dinner dates for a while and think of another way to meet. It may not be the best suggestion, but I hope you can find a way to avoid rejecting the other person. P.S. Since we’re in the middle of the COVID pandemic, you sometimes see claims that masks are effective against viruses. But I don’t recall hearing that before COVID. I’m curious which view will become mainstream after COVID is over.