Angela Merkel wears white when she announces the latest corona regulations in a press conference every few weeks after her meeting with the heads of government of the 16 federal states. The Chancellor then even presents herself in a partner look, because Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder and Berlin’s Governing Mayor Michael Müller then wear her: a white mask that is reminiscent of a filter for coffee machines. It should protect particularly well against the dangerous infectious disease.
Uniform look: Angela Merkel (center), Markus Söder (r.) And Michael Müller (l.) With white corona mask
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Its name sounds as technocratic as it looks: FFP2 mask. The letters stand for Filtering Face Piece. Half of Germany has been running around with it since January, and has to cover your mouth and nose with it, especially when shopping. Alternatively, the pale blue medical masks, which were hardly used outside of operating theaters in hospitals in Europe before Corona, are allowed. But now you can see them everywhere in supermarkets and bakeries. Or in trains and buses. Only those who adorn their more or less beautiful visage with one of these two scraps of non-woven fabric are allowed in.
Necessity is the mother of invention
So times change and with them people change. Speaking of which: Corona is bad and the masks are urgently needed – but how beautifully colorful and imaginative the first year of the pandemic was! When you were still allowed to buy bread rolls with a mask of some kind or take a train to work. March 2020 was the month in Germany when people in Germany mutated into a people of seamstresses and craftsmen overnight. Because there were hardly any protective masks available in a hurry, the Germans tinkered with them or bought self-made products that suddenly appeared on every corner. Necessity makes you inventive.
DW editor Marcel Fürstenau without a mask
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In no time at all, the republic was transformed into a masked ball that had never been seen before. Hoods made of cotton, polyester, plexiglass. They were red, green, blue and yellow, purple, orange or everything together. You saw diamonds, hearts, shark teeth, tongues. Masks could be a statement and bring people closer to each other – despite the requirement to keep a distance. My first mouth and nose protection, the official name, was anything but colorful, on the contrary: black and white with a ribbon that you have to tie into a bow behind your head. Nevertheless, the mask was a topic of conversation in both senses of the word.
“Please exchange my mask with me”
The secret was her motive: loud notes and a treble clef. And when I turned the mask over, the keys of a piano came out. Every day, really everyone, I was approached by total strangers. The mask comes from an unknown customer of a piano house, where I bought it for ten euros. A supermarket cashier would have loved to have the same for her husband. “He plays the piano.” My best experience was the young woman on the platform, who held out her mask to me: “Please change my mask with me, I’m a music teacher.”
And today? The mask, once so admired and coveted, collects dust. It rests on a filigree iron sculpture that looks like a heron. The little work of art is in my hallway on a light brown chest of drawers. So when leaving the house it was guaranteed that I would not forget the good piece. Sometimes I get sad when I see her so useless on her stand. And feel bad because I’ve been unfaithful to her for months. Your unattractive rival is right next to it: the white FFP2 mask.
This shapely corona mask has seen better days; she hasn’t gotten fresh air for months
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A civil corona army that disguises itself inconspicuously
I now meet the likes of them a thousand times a day: at the greengrocer’s in the market, in the drugstore, at the snack bar. Everywhere I see her or her ugly sister, the medical face mask. Germany has turned into a civilian army that is inconspicuously camouflaged. Uniformed, this troop follows the new orders from politics and science almost every day. Sometimes it’s easing, sometimes tightening. What always stays the same in the daily Corona routine of restricted freedom of movement are the masks.
Gone are the almost anarchic times when everyone wore what they liked. But the present is bleak and boring. Just as animals and plants are threatened with extinction in nature, the biodiversity of the masks is dramatically endangered. And because we will have to live with the pandemic for a long time in view of sluggish vaccinations and increasing numbers of infections from corona mutants, I have been looking for creative solutions to the mask dilemma for a long time.
Internet search: “FFP2 mask with pattern”
Wearing none and finally showing your face again is unfortunately not (yet) an option. I search the Internet for manufacturers of colored FFP2 masks and find them – really! “This is my salvation!”, I think in the first euphoria. When I see the motifs, however, I am very disappointed: light pink, mouse gray, blue and black … “That couldn’t have been everything,” I hope and clicked on other pages – and lo and behold! They actually seem to exist: safe masks with dinosaur motifs (for children) or those with skulls (for cynics?). Surely there will be something for me too.
The optical diversity of the cotton masks was significantly greater
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But far from it! But for a different reason. They are not FFP2 masks at all, but rather ones made of cotton and jersey. But I don’t give up that quickly, click on and refine my search: “FFP2 mask with pattern.” The number of hits is manageable. Some manufacturers praise their products sensationally, as is customary in the industry: “You will be stylish with these covers!” But I’ll never take to the streets with a floral pattern and dog paws – I’d rather have a deadly boring medical mask …
People will think of me as a corona denier
Stop! Wasn’t there any talk of “coatings”? That is the solution! Why didn’t I come up with it all by myself? I just have to hide the protective mask required in shops, markets, buses and trains under my beloved cotton mask with notes and treble clef. But my feeling of happiness evaporates immediately because a sobering thought occurs to me again: People will consider me a provocateur, worse still: a corona denier. They can’t see that I’m wearing a protective mask …
I can already feel their reproachful looks and hear them snort: “You have to wear an FFP2 mask or a medical mask in shops! Where do we go if everyone does what they want?” With this idea the last bit of hope in me disappears. I have to finally come to terms with the fact that in this pandemic I mostly have to hide my face behind the same boring facade as everyone else. Maybe I should console myself with a completely different, somehow absurd thought: I wear the same mask as Angela Merkel!
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