Dear Sydney: some tips for wearing masks....

* Invest in finding the right mask for your face. Some material may be irritating, some designs may be the wrong shape for your head, some ties may hurt your years. If you’re going to be wearing a mask every day have a think about what works best for you

* Get the seal tight to your face: it shouldn’t be bagging around your chin or cheeks.

* You can stop glasses fogging up by making sure the seal of the mask is close to your skin of your nose or using a little cloth tape to stick it down

* Brush your teeth before leaving the house. Chew gum or suck on a mint. Don’t eat anchovies and onion just before putting a mask on

* Keep a spare mask or two in your bag. Once or twice I forgot my regular mask at home. Another time I came across a teenager who was being refused a bus ride cos they didn’t have a mask: a single-use mask came in handy to give them

* Stick to cloth masks, don’t use masks with exhalation valves - they don’t protect other ppl from you

* If wearing a mask makes you feel faint, focus on your breathing: some ppl get anxious in masks, but you can train yourself to cope better with the experience. I find keeping my line of sight up helps - I get breathless if I look down and breathe shallowly too much

* Wash and rinse your mask regularly or they will be stinky and ick

* Encourage your kids to wear masks - it’s a safe habit and good to learn young

* Send beautiful, colourful masks to friends and family and ppl you love. It’s a sign of a desire to see ppl survive and celebrate better times with them in the future

* Habits are hard to form but you get used to them quickly. Wearing a mask may be hard at first but after a while it becomes routine. Stick with it

* If you smoke cigarettes, you may find mask wearing is gross: you’ll smell it on your mask from your skin and it may be really unpleasant. Also respiratory conditions may make mask wearing more difficult

* A person who doesn’t wear a mask during a mask mandate in a pandemic is a person to keep distance from. It may be they can’t wear a mask for medical reasons, and so all the more reason to be polite and social distance. Don’t be rude to non-mask wearers, just give them space