Over the last few years, COVID-19 created a new culture of people wearing masks. Now, mask culture has settled down to be bothersome, but also somewhat comfortable. After Oct. 2020 when wearing masks was made mandatory, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) finally announced that starting from Jan. 30, 2022, they will loosen the rules and people no longer must wear masks. A lot of people, especially the young, were pleased with this news since masks had come with annoying features such as hindering communication and fogging up glasses. Even though a lot of people waited for that day to come, masks remain common. The New York Times analyzed this phenomenon and suggested three reasons why people keep wearing masks.
 First, old habits die hard, and people have reservations about changing them. Most citizens in Korea wore masks indoors and outdoors for more than two years. Furthermore, Koreans are used to wearing masks as they often wear masks whenever the fine dust concentration rate rises. Due to the peculiar air pollution in Korea, fine dust levels often fail to reach international air quality standards. Now, people wear masks regularly as a reflex. This situation is similar in many parts of Asia. Mizuki Nishimura, who teaches ballet in Yokohama said “They mask just like they reflexively bow their heads when seeing an elder. Without a mask on, they feel something is missing.”
 Next, Ministry of the Interior and Safety still recommend wearing masks. Wearing a mask is not a duty but is recommended anytime, anywhere. Also, it is forced to wear a mask in medical institutions and public transport as the elderly and patients are especially susceptible to COVID-19. Even the young could be infected with COVID-19. One never knows who the carrier is among all the people one meets. Kim Sung-ho, a senior interior ministry official in South Korea, said “The danger of COVID-19 has not disappeared yet” on Feb. 1, because   new daily COVID-19 cases still exceed 10,000 often. The danger of COVID-19 cemented the etiquette of wearing a mask to not cause harm to neighbors.
 Additionally, experts analyze that people could be self-conscious about not wearing masks so they continue to hide their faces. With the masks on, people can hide their faces and not have to make facial expressions such as smiling. Now, some people are introverted enough to be stressed about revealing their faces, so making facial expressions and wearing makeup could feel like an additional task for them. There are other reasons for becoming self-conscious. While most people wear masks, people may frown on the people who are not wearing masks since one could be a carrier.
 There are some disagreements among experts on whether the masks policy could buffer the infection. A lot of medical doctors (MDs) agree with the fact that masks could block the infection in the short term for an hour or two but question the effectiveness of the mask policy in the long term. People cannot always wear a mask and must take them off eventually as they eat, exercise, or meet friends. At The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, a paper named Physical Interventions to Interrupt or Reduce the Spread of Respiratory Viruses was published. This paper found out that “wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-Cov-2 compared to not wearing masks”. The government should always make policies based on scientific reasons. One certain truth all agree on is that people with suspected COVID-19 symptoms should wear a mask to block the spread of COVID-19.