Over the last year, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, most of us have become familiar with the fleeting terror that comes while venturing out. A quick mental checklist is run, and the anxiety persists until you're certain that you have your face mask with you. Not just a matter of personal safety, in today's world the lack of a mask can also mean you're unable to enter many public spaces.
For many of us it is always a relief to realise that our behaviour is much the same as that of well known personalities. And so, as a video of German Chancellor Angela Merkel abruptly jumping out of her seat after realising that she had left her mask on the Speaker's podium of the German Parliament went viral, social media users could certainly relate.
"Even she is just human - who'd have thought??!! Gotta love Merkel!" wrote one Twitter user.
"She is real," summed up another user.
While some applauded Merkel for "leading by example", others wished that leaders across the world would behave with similar levels of responsibility.
For a large majority of social media users, that briefly flustered moment was something exceedingly natural and something that they had themselves done dozens of times over the last year. Unless of course they still believed that the pandemic is a hoax or that wearing a mask goes against ones' personal rights.
And going by the Twitter comments there were certainly several of those around. Some on Twitter proudly told others that they had "never worn" a mask and never intended to wear one even in the future. And while they were swiftly countered by others online, it would seem that the hatred for masks lives on in some spheres, much like the conviction even among some officials that the COVID-19 pandemic is a "hoax".
