Singapore — “Baby must also wear mask, ok,” said a woman caught on camera scolding a fellow MRT passenger for not making her baby wear a mask.
“Local Karen wants the baby to wear mask,” Facebook page Singapore Incidents reported on Thursday (Dec 2).
The post includes video footage taken on a train of a woman standing with her back to the camera berating a passenger in front of her.
“What kind of baby not wear mask, huh?” the woman asked.
“She’s a baby,” the baby’s mother replied.
“Baby must also wear mask, ok,” the woman retorted. “How do I know whether your baby doesn’t have virus? What kind of guarantee she doesn’t have virus?” she added.
All through the 33-second-long video, the woman keeps on scolding the baby’s mother.
Facebook user Joel Wong commented: “Nowadays, everything is captured on camera, so if you decide to act out in public, you must be prepared to see yourself in the news and social media later in the day.”
Another netizen remarked that the aggressor herself had done wrong: “Not supposed to talk loudly in MRT. She breached Covid law already. If the baby is two years and below, cannot wear a mask for medical reason. If she insists, can charge her with ‘inciting ill-treatment against minors’.”
In September last year, the Ministry of Health (MOH) raised the legal cut-off age for children who must wear masks in public from two years old to six years old.
That announcement came after the World Health Organization and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund said that young children below six years old might not have the coordination necessary for the proper use of masks.
The incident recorded on the MRT is hardly the first time that a local “Karen”, a slang term for a woman using her privilege to demand something beyond the scope of the normal, has been shamed online.
Footage of a woman causing problems for food court staff after she was told to wear a mask went viral in August last year.
Perhaps the most infamous mask incident thus far happened in May this year, when a local Karen who refused to wear a mask challenged the authority of safe distancing ambassadors to compel her to comply.
Video of her “Show me your badge” demand went viral, beginning with one at Marina Bay Sands that was the first to be posted online. “Show Me Your Badge” became an internet meme with other jokey videos playing on the badge theme being created.
The woman was sentenced in September to 16 weeks’ jail for a series of similar defiant incidents, including taking her mask off right outside the State Courts and breaching a Stay-Home Notice multiple times. /TISG
Read related: Woman refuses to wear a mask, asks for safe distancing ambassador’s badge in order to put one on
‘Sovereign’ woman remanded at IMH after claiming she was “not a person”