To Mask or not to Mask while hiking Table Mountain?

PLEASE NOTE:

AS OF LATE DECEMBER 2020'S FAMILY MEETING, OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES REQUIRE A MASK - EXCEPT WHILE DOING VIGOUROUS EXERCISE.

So I heard Judge Dennis Davis talking about his walks up Table Mountain a couple of time a week. He socially distances himself from his companions, and wears a mask. It's extraordinary to him how many people on bikes or on foot are without masks. Generally of the 25 - 40 age group. They couldn't care less for him or anyone else.

You get arrogant glares back at you, which Davis says regularly happens when he mentions wearing one. As if you are asking for something outrageous.

But what does the science say about wearing masks?

I was amazed to hear (in mid July) that there is not enough definitive research, according to researchers at the Oxford Center for Evidence Based medicine, for them to say that masks make any difference - apart for those health workers exposed on the front line.

Deeper searches reveal this sort of language in Nature Medicine: Our results indicate that surgical face masks could prevent transmission of human coronaviruses and influenza viruses from symptomatic individuals.

The above was sited in this latest (07 August) MASK RESEARCH SURVEY: Low-cost measurement of facemask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech

So mask-up while hiking on Table Mountain?

I'd say yes. Especially when on narrow trails with other hikers passing. At a time when still such little is known about SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, not wearing a mask is a statement of bald, dangerous certainty. To an unscientifically-minded person like myself, the observable basics of spray ballistics suggests that wearing one makes common sense. It's also communal care if it saves others from the kind of anxiety moments in history like this can engender.

That being said, virulent viral load is said to be dispersed outdoors. The sun is good. And tending to our microbiomes, through diet and recharging in the atmosphere of the Cape's un-industrialized zones, like Table Mountain National Park.

As for the masked man above, Melton Rasimphi Makhumisani, his mask takes Silver for Most Outrageous Mountain attire.

Gold goes to the dude on Platteklip, earlier this year (2020) back when masks were not a thing ...

Davis' remarks on Table Mountain can be found here.

More on what the Oxford people say about the efficacy of masks here:

PLEASE NOTE:

AS OF LATE DECEMBER 2020'S FAMILY MEETING, OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES REQUIRE A MASK - EXCEPT WHILE DOING VIGOUROUS EXERCISE.