Henry Cooke was Stuff’s main political reporter, but has now taken the time to travel.
OPINION: Wearing a mask in the UK almost feels antisocial right now.
There has been no mention of Covid entering the country or seemingly anywhere else. People pour in and out of interior spaces without rummaging in their pockets for the mask they keep in every pair of pants or jacket. And if you’re in a crowded tube and you pull on, you might get a strange look.
But travelers on their way to the rest of Europe should stop before throwing away the mask they used for the plane trip.
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While there are no mask rules or hardly any compliance in much of Europe, a pair of comfortable, high-quality masks should still be an essential travel accessory.
I have been traveling through Italy, Greece, Turkey, Germany and Poland in the past month and have seen all kinds of mask rules. Turkey and Greece do not have mask requirements for public transport. Italy and Germany both do – but in much of Italy, no one really seemed to care about that rule, while in Berlin, compliance was close to 100%. On almost all flights within the continent, there is no question or requirement that you be masked.
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You must wear a mask, as wearing a mask on busy public transport is an easy and effective way to reduce the risk of getting Covid-19.
This can lead to some confusion as you quickly change cities and mask cultures – even within countries. In southern Italy nobody really wore a mask, but when I forgot to put on my mask when I got on a metro train in Rome, a little older woman started saying “maschera” to me repeatedly – making me realize that almost everyone in that particular train wearing a mask.
I felt like the worst kind of tourist, but they are mostly Americans. In Athens, while we waited to board a funicular that had a mask requirement, an American couple tried to enforce some sort of right they had to go maskless by arguing with the attendant. In the Vatican, it was Americans who seemed unable to read the obvious social and factual signs that required the use of a mask in crowded elevators.
So you should take a mask – but not just because you don’t want to be a rude tourist. You must wear a mask, as wearing a mask on crowded public transport is an easy and effective way to reduce the risk of getting Covid-19 and ruining your vacation. Of course, New Zealand will no longer send you away for a positive test, but Covid-19 could leave you bedridden and potentially in need of foreign health care.
And catching Covid-19 wouldn’t be that hard here. The number of cases is increasing in Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece. Other than masks, there are really no other restrictions – no pre-departure tests, no arrival tests, no vaccine passes.
I have chosen to wear a mask almost all the time on public transport, even in Istanbul where hardly anyone was there. I had Covid-19 not too long ago, so my chances of getting it are slim – but not zero, and there are plenty of other annoying bugs to worry about.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to spend your entire vacation hidden away. No one here wears masks in shops or restaurants – and very few museums make them mandatory. I’ve generally just gone with the flow, especially since the A/C usually blows in all of these areas, which makes for a good amount of ventilation.
Covid won’t be completely missing from your trip… Air NZ won’t sell trips until 2019. But with a good N95 mask and the habit of taking it with you when you go out, Covid won’t dominate your trip either.