It was a strange feeling for many of us who went to a supermarket these last few days to buy our necessities.

Until last week, very few customers and staff were wearing face masks or visors to shield themselves and others from the Coronavirus. We did our best to retain a distance between us and others but we did so without having the discomfort of wearing protection in front of our faces.

As from Monday, it has become obligatory, and not only in supermarkets. People entering shops – all shops, those that sell essential items and the rest which re-opened Monday after weeks of forced shutdown – need to wear masks, as do commuters on public transport.

For some who are claustrophobic, the feeling was not welcome. For the rest, it took some time getting used to feel your breath coming back towards you and your glasses getting fogged up. For all, it was surreal and probably we all carried out our shopping requirements faster than we do normally so as to get rid of the mask or visor as quickly as possible.

The question we keep asking ourselves is this: why were masks not obligatory at the height of the crisis, and why were we allowed to go to buy food and drink without wearing them; and now, when the numbers have come down, we are told to wear them and that, technically, we could be even fined or sent to prison if we don’t?

When health superintendent Charmaine Gauci was asked this question, the answer she gave was that we must get used to the new normal. And the new normal means that we have to adapt to new circumstances and, at least until a vaccination for the dreaded virus is discovered, tested, found to be safe, and then made available to all of us, we have to learn to live by the new rules.

Perhaps many of us thought that this pandemic would be over in a few weeks, and that we would soon return to our way of life as we knew it before 7 March – the day when the first cases was reported in Malta. But the more time passes, and the more we see how the virus has spread and how other countries who belittled the problem have come to face an unprecedented health (and social and economic) crisis, the more we have come to understand that this situation will not be overcome easily.

We are also coming to terms with the idea that nobody can predict if and when this crisis will be over, at least from a health point of view. This level of uncertainty is perhaps the most difficult aspect to contend with because, although we hope that the situation will be brought under control, there is still no light appearing at the end of this long and horrendous tunnel.

Until that happens, we must continue to adhere to the guidelines that are being set by the health authorities. We must admit that it was only thanks to their instructions – and that these were followed to the letter by most of us – that Malta managed to contain the spread of the virus.

Health Minister Chris Fearne said it right from the start – “we must avoid a tsunami of cases, and instead convert it into a river”.

So far, we have managed. So some discomfort is a small sacrifice we must all bear as we wait for better times.