In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Finland walks unmasked. As more and more countries demand that masks be worn in certain situations, Finland “is studying the issue of mask use in the care of the elderly”.

When all this is over and the second-guessing begins, many countries will question the decisions they made: Did we get our actions or our timing wrong; did we do too little too late, too much too early, or something in between?

In Finland the death toll has been very low so far. If the trend continues, we may well look back at this time and think that we overreacted. On the other hand, we are part of a bigger whole. Our own lockdown measures will probably not be the base cause for the biggest financial problems we face going forward. The fact that the EU and our main trading partners beyond it went into lockdown will be at the root of a majority of them. In this we had little choice.

Finns are pragmatic and sensible. When told to self-isolate, we did so with such dedication that even our decision makers were surprised. The downside of our pragmatism is that our trust is easily lost, if we spot glaring inconsistencies between the words and the actions of said decision makers.

Finland walks unmasked in this sense too. We are not the well-organised welfare state we purport to be. We are lying to ourselves and each other on a grand scale. Our actions have focused on ensuring that our hospitals won’t be overburdened, while our talk has been mostly about the elderly.

The measures we take to curtail people’s freedom of movement and assembly, as well as our children’s right to education, are predominantly our own choices to make.  Not to mention the measures we don’t take. These may all come back to haunt us. One of them is the use of masks.

It was clear early on that the elderly would be the ones most likely to die of COVID-19, so we quickly shut our elderly out of sight – and mind – when the crisis started. We didn’t want the them to fill our hospitals. But did we really do what we could to safeguard them? No, because our focus was not truly on them. We told the elderly to self-isolate, but continued to care for them without taking all necessary precautions. We were not alone, many other countries did the same.

Contrary to most others, however, much of our care of the elderly is still mask-free, including ambulance pick ups and hospital care of elderly stroke patients. Sadly, the latter information stems from an unscheduled hospital trip my partner in life had to take in the midst of the coronacrisis.

All is well that ends well, but we are still unsure of the ending. Not because of the stroke, which was mild, but because of the sudden exposure to numerous unmasked contacts in a hospital environment after seven weeks of full self-isolation. There was such a glaring discrepancy between what the patient himself had been asked to do and the safety measures the people responsible for his care didn’t take that our trust in those in charge was seriously undermined.

There are so many big issues on the table, why am I harping about masks? I do it because they are a symbol of what has gone wrong in Finland. We are all waiting for orders: for someone to tell us whether or not to use masks. We are waiting for outside help: for someone to give us those masks or tell us where we can get them. We don’t want to be different: who wants to use a mask and risk being considered paranoid, when decision makers don’t require its use? Last but not least, we love our comforts: masks are not comfortable to use.

Doing nothing is doing something. In this case, I’m afraid that we are making a mistake.

Finns are not good at changing perspective. Our history is full of bad financial decisions that we have stuck to stubbornly until some international event manages to wake us up from our stupor. One of them was the policy of the strong Finnish markka in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Said policy lead to mass unemployment before we collectively woke up and allowed the buoyancy of the Finnish markka.

Are we at it again? Are we so focused on one solution that we can’t see the benefits of another? Are we so focused on 100% safety – which is a natural goal as far as those caring for COVID-19 patients are concerned –  that we can’t se the benefits of mask use among the rest of the population, or at least in the care of the oft-mentioned elderly?

We can protect others even if we can’t fully protect ourselves. The effectivity of the masks available to the general public may never be 100%, maybe not even near it, but it’s still more than zero. In addition, the masks would serve as a much-needed signal that although we are slowly reopening Finland, COVID-19 is still among us.

This small, but significant, change of perspective could well mean a significantly lower fatality in the care of our elderly and a lower COVID-19 transmission rate in general. It would remind us that the war has yet to be won although much has already been lost in the initial battles.

The masks are the top of the iceberg of Finland’s decision-making problems. This crisis has shown us how much damage petty bureaucrats safeguarding their own fiefdoms can cause, how unprepared our ministries, healthcare system and various officials are for any out-of-the-box situation. The tools and the people simply aren’t there. More importantly, the mindset isn’t there.

Our strengths seem to lie more in the order-following department. This is not all bad in a crisis situation as long as someone has the giving of orders well in hand. Which in turn is a pretty impossible task, when you are fighting an unknown enemy like COVID-19. New and unproven solutions have to be devised and applied on the run. While battling the imminent crisis, measures have to be weighed against the problems they create later. Add the fact that almost no reliable information is available regarding the results of these measures, and whatever little information is available keeps changing. None of this makes it easy to give exact and clear orders.

Which still begs the question: Why is this itty-bitty mask issue such a tough problem? It seems such a simple case compared to all others. Why can’t we just tell everyone – publicly and officially – when and where they should use masks, and how to get or make somewhat effective masks as the perfect ones are not available in adequate quantity? How can I trust that bigger issues are well in hand, if this is such a difficult issue to be unambiguous about?

Dear decision-makers: If our key concern is not safeguarding the elderly, then so be it. We all have to die some day. Forget the masks. Just tell the elderly to self-isolate until a vaccine is found, but please be honest about your reasons: The elderly are self-isolating and locked in their rooms in care facilities to safeguard the rest of our society and especially our healthcare system – they are not the ones being safeguarded. If they were, masks would be used in their care.

I will don my mask whatever you decide.