Thinking COVID-19 Masks as Virus Prevention or Socio-cultural Practice

Nigerians can be said to be culturally conscious, this is especially so with the Yoruba, who use every avenue to be culturally creative. The improvised strategy observed in the Nigerian society in the use of COVID-19 face mask is significant to this study. This improvisation and stems on creativity and aesthetics among other indices across different strata of the society, ethnic groups, professional bodies, association and even political entity forms the motivation for this study. Using the participant orientation part of the theory of Ethnography, the paper examined people’s disposition towards the use of facemasks and the functions they perform during COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, other than the function of preventing them from contacting the virus. The data (twenty-eight samples) was got through participant observation, media and pictures of people wearing facemasks, WhatsApp and online images of people wearing facemasks. Our findings reveal that apart from protection from the deadly virus, people’s personal or group disposition to the wearing of masks reveal their leanings towards religion, culture, fashion, politics etc. The mandatory use of facemasks also created emergency entrepreneurs on mask-making, which serves as economic opportunity. The research concludes that more education on prevention and coping strategies are needed worldwide for COVID-19 and other related pandemic virus, since it seems that the world would have to tolerate its presence for some time, and any other related virus that may later emerge with similar spread pattern, as scientists work on the vaccine for prevention and medicine for cure.