Twitter users' sentiments toward mask wearing

The World Health Organization advises people to wear a face mask in public to protect themselves from COVID-19. It provides materials and cites supporting studies demonstrating that a medical face mask is an effective way to protect people from COVID-19. Some researchers (Kashyap, A., Singh, K., Sabat,2020) think that face masks, as a form of personal protective equipment (PPE), are an effective, economical barrier against the virus. People have varying attitudes toward wearing face masks, a controversy which has led to extensive public debate during the pandemic. Wearing a face mask has been a normal occurrence in East Asia for many years, but not in Western countries such as the United Kingdom and the USA (Prasad, R. 2020,BBC News), where usage of face masks has historically been rare (Aravindakshan, A., Boehnke, J, 2020 ). We approached the current study with the following questions: (1) what is people’s attitude when they are talking about wearing facecovering policy on social media? (2) Have the attitudes about face masks changed throughout the pandemic?