How have masks been covered on television news? The timeline below shows total mentions of masks since the start of the pandemic, showing an initial burst in March 2020 and then a series of ups and downs in coverage until November 2020, when it switches to a steady state of a few dozen mentions a day. Brief bursts in March 2021 and April and May 2021 give way to a period of sustained mentions from July to August 2021 with the spread of the Delta variant. The Omicron variant has led to only a small increase in mentions of masking.