Societal Consequences of COVID-19 Public Health Policies

A study, “Effect of Wearing a Face Mask on Vocal Self-Perception during a Pandemic,” whose aim was to analyze the vocal self perception of individuals who wore the face mask for essential activities and those who wore it for both professional and essential activities during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Results were based on self-perception. Vocal fatigue while wearing the face mask was measured by answers to the Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI). Vocal fatigue is the primary perception of increased vocal effort, which increases with use and improves with rest. Face mask increases difficulties in speech intelligibility, auditory feedback, and difficulty in coordinating speech and breathing, regardless of the purpose of use. ¹⁾

A Study, “Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?” found, respiratory physiology of mask wearers with significant correlation of O2 drop and fatigue (p < 0.05), a clustered co-occurrence of respiratory impairment and O2 drop (67%), N95 mask and CO2 rise (82%), N95 mask and O2 drop (72%), N95 mask and headache (60%), respiratory impairment and temperature rise (88%), but also temperature rise and moisture (100%) under the masks. ²⁾

Jaclyn Theeck, clinical director and speech-language pathologist at the Speech and Learning Institute, Inc. in North Palm Beach, Florida, states Pre-pandemic, only 5% of patients were babies and toddlers. Today, as the pandemic continues to consume the world, she says that numbers have risen drastically to 20%. ³⁾

Masks have consequences for young babies to deaf individuals. Masks hide emotions and this creates anxiety between patient and provider. For people with hearing difficulties, having the mouth covered is a major barrier as they are unable to lip read. For an infant, not being able to detect full facial expression has the potential for long reaching effects in the early stages of neurobehavioral development. A mask covering the face may affect the infant’s ability to develop facial processing and orientating to or focusing on another person’s face. For infants and children to feel safe, there is a heavy dependence on facial expressions as they rely on their parents’ emotional cues via facial expression to regulate their responses towards them or to potentially threatening situations. Parents also need to be able to read the infant; infant vocalisations are important for a parent to determine the infant’s readiness for interaction and for adjusting their own emotional responses. ⁴⁾

Facemasks muffle high-frequency speech sounds and block visual cues. This is especially hard for those who have hearing difficulty as they often rely on visual cues such as lip movements more than people with normal hearing do. Some hearing loss advocates have suggested using masks with clear windows instead of opaque cloth masks. Unfortunately, experiments show that clear masks strongly degrade high-frequency sounds. Listeners with hearing loss are therefore forced to choose between sound cues and visual cues. The study focuses on the best masks for communication and how to amplify communication when wearing masks. ⁵⁾