Would You Be In Favour Of Mandatory Mask Wearing Again?

[Thunder Bolt]

It's way too early for any kind of restrictions. We are in a good place at the moment. The press conference will be to do with the booster jab rollout.

Mask wearing will become mandatory at some point though, I'm certain of that, but it will be in the winter months when the NHS is at risk again.

I struggle with your idea of a good place. 800 people are dying every week which is the equivalent of a major train crash.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Had cause to go out to some godforsaken station on the outermost reaches of Zone 6 last week. Crappy train out of Liverpool Street that stopped in places you never heard of every minute and a half. There were constant tannoy 'please consider others and wear a mask' announcements. About one f*cker in twenty was doing so, like the announcement only applied to some other guy. This is how life is on Plague Island. It'll be exactly the same at football on saturday

 

[dazzer6666]

Always wear my mask in shops, supermarkets, on trains and even walking through narrow footpaths in the open.

I was quite alarmed to see only about 20% of passengers wearing one on the tube in London last weekend. Madness and incredibly naìve.

Yep - we were in London for a couple of days last week. Very regular announcements and loads of posters on the tube saying masks are required and 75% of people ignoring them, and no enforcement at all that I saw. Even if it's made 'mandatory' public compliance now has been pretty much lost.

 

[KZNSeagull]

Why don't supermarket staff wear masks (in Sainsbury's West Hove it's been virtually no-one since March 2020)? Age doesn't seem to come into it, at the height of the pandemic, young and older staff didn't give a monkeys.

Do Tesco's as a company have no interest in this?

It's doable - in NHS and private hospitals, bus drivers, airports, overseas shops I've been in (Italy and Spain), literally every worker wears a mask properly over the nose and mouth.

It's a very good question and I don't know the answer. It was compulsory during lockdowns but "only if you can" which is why loads of staff suddenly developed hidden disabilities to get out of wearing one. The worst perpetrators were the checkout staff and supervisors, which as a customer would have put me right off shopping there. The phrase "human rights" kept coming up when I asked why certain people were not wearing them, so I guess Tesco cannot enforce it otherwise they will be subject to all sorts of claims from staff, no doubt backed up by the union.

Now only the store manager wears one, me and a couple of the other shelf packers wear one but no-one else does. That includes all of the other managers and, incredibly, the health and safety rep! None of the bakery staff wear one. It's disgraceful really.

 

[Swansman]

Never been mandatory here and impact appears to be limited.

I'd say currently maybe 2% wear them when shopping in Sweden, and out of those 2% the vast majority are Asians who might have worn it with or without this pandemic.

Unfortunately, simpletons will do/say this:

"Country X has enforced the wearing of masks and their cases have gone up. This therefore absolutely proves that masks do not work. Therefore we should not wear them here."

When people operate at that low-level of intelligence, it's almost impossible to reason with them.

Simpletons will also say the opposite.

"Country X has enforced the wearing of masks and their cases have gone down. This therefore absolutely proves that masks do work. Therefore we should wear them here."

 

[jcdenton08]

Did you go outside for a walk, as others suggested in your laziness thread?

 

[CheeseRolls]

Get those bloody masks back on. Travelling to from Norwich on the weekend, I couldn't believe the number of people on the underground and other confined spaces not wearing masks.

Remember you wear masks to protect other people, so all those people coughing away on the train on the way back and I could hear several.

Have you taken a Covid test?
If it is just a cold how can you be sure?
How can anyone else be sure you aren't spreading Covid?
Personally I could go all Japanese on this one, I don't want your stinking cold either!

Who needs leadership, when you can have a waffling idiot who doesn't even know how to operate a comb, crack a couple of half arsed jokes and delegate all responsibility to everyone else.

 

[dazzer6666]

Why don't supermarket staff wear masks (in Sainsbury's West Hove it's been virtually no-one since March 2020)? Age doesn't seem to come into it, at the height of the pandemic, young and older staff didn't give a monkeys.

Do Tesco's as a company have no interest in their stores?

It's doable - in NHS and private hospitals, bus drivers, airports, overseas shops I've been in (Italy and Spain), literally every worker wears a mask properly over the nose and mouth.

Possibly, but better (fairer ?) to enforce the customers to wear them - 10 mins for me vs maybe 10 hours for a member of staff.....................

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Get those bloody masks back on. Travelling to from Norwich on the weekend, I couldn't believe the number of people on the underground and other confined spaces not wearing masks.

Remember you wear masks to protect other people, so all those people coughing away on the train on the way back and I could hear several.

Have you taken a Covid test?
If it is just a cold how can you be sure?
How can anyone else be sure you aren't spreading Covid?
Personally I could go all Japanese on this one, I don't want your stinking cold either!

Who needs leadership, when you can have a waffling idiot who doesn't even know how to operate a comb, crack a couple of half arsed jokes and delegate all responsibility to everyone else.

Good post!

 

[Blue3]

I am still wearing a mask in public in doors and will continue to do so

 

[Weststander]

It's a very good question and I don't know the answer. It was compulsory during lockdowns but "only if you can" which is why loads of staff suddenly developed hidden disabilities to get out of wearing one. The worst perpetrators were the checkout staff and supervisors, which as a customer would have put me right off shopping there. The phrase "human rights" kept coming up when I asked why certain people were not wearing them, so I guess Tesco cannot enforce it otherwise they will be subject to all sorts of claims from staff, no doubt backed up by the union.

Now only the store manager wears one, me and a couple of the other shelf packers wear one but no-one else does. That includes all of the other managers and, incredibly, the health and safety rep! None of the bakery staff wear one. It's disgraceful really.

A friend in their teens worked for a well-known clothing retailer and bought the fake health reasons lanyard for not wearing a mask. As did all their colleagues, it became a standing joke.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Give most people 2 jabs and they think they're invincible.

 

[Weststander]

Possibly, but better (fairer ?) to enforce the customers to wear them - 10 mins for me vs maybe 10 hours for a member of staff.....................

I thought someone would say that.

But then retail staff in Italy and Spain wear masks, as do Brits working incredibly long shifts in hospitals, surgeries, airports, on buses and in taxis.


Being cynical, I wonder if the supermarkets failed to enforce/mandate face-mask wearing for staff and customers for commercial reasons (i.e. including staff retention)?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I'm the opposite. I don't mind being around people with colds etc. Need to keep the immune system exposed to bugs in order for it to remain resilient against them.

We probably should behave as naturally as we can, at least until there are signs that the NHS could be at risk, so we are exposed to these bugs as we always will be.

I had that 'super cold' earlier in the month and it was the worst of my life. I put that down entirely due to not being exposed to bugs over the last year and a half.

OK, we get it. You're immortal and an expert at self-diagnosis and it's all just a bad cold anyway.

Jeez!

 

[dazzer6666]

I thought someone would say that.

But then retail staff in Italy and Spain wear masks, as do Brits working incredibly long shifts in hospitals, surgeries, airports, on buses and in taxis.


Being cynical, I wonder if the supermarkets failed to enforce/mandate face-mask wearing for staff and customers for commercial reasons (i.e. including staff retention)?

I know- but point being if customers can't be forced/arsed to wear them for 20 minutes, why should the staff have to for several hours ? Start with the customers..............

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

Possibly, but better (fairer ?) to enforce the customers to wear them - 10 mins for me vs maybe 10 hours for a member of staff.....................

Both customers AND staff should wear properly fitted face masks, and not those stupid visors either, where germs can escape out of the bottom.

 

[Bozza]

Simpletons will also say the opposite.

"Country X has enforced the wearing of masks and their cases have gone down. This therefore absolutely proves that masks do work. Therefore we should wear them here."

Indeed. Although I'm not sure I've seen, heard or read of anyone trying to make that flawed point.

Whereas, I have seen, heard and read people making the flawed point I posted.

Two flawed points don't make a right.

What is right is that there are numerous sound scientific studies pointing to face coverings helping to reduce viral spread, and that's good enough for me.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Give most people 2 jabs and they think they're invincible.

Not invincible. I don't think many people believe that vaccination confers immortality, and I hope there aren't many who even hope that it wuld.

What the vaccine does is improve your odds. If, for example, you are an 88 year old woman, your chances of making it to this time next year are about 80% in normal times. Based on current stats, those odds have reduced to 79%.

She knows that if she continues to hide at home and shun her friends, her social life, and her family, she can improve her chances of living another year from 79% to 80%. If she chooses to ignore the risk and goes out living her life, it isn't because she believes herself to be immortal. It's because she thinks the increased risk of death is a price worth paying for the increased enjoyment of life.

It's similar odds at all age groups. If your chances of death in normal times are 1%, then it rises to 1.05% or so. It's a matter of whether the increased risk is worth the extra enjoyment of life. Sometimes we do things (like driving, for example) that we know carries a risk, but which we choose to ignore because it's a low enough risk.

 

[Weststander]

I know- but point being if customers can't be forced/arsed to wear them for 20 minutes, why should the staff have to for several hours ? Start with the customers..............

I've never mentioned the staff abstinence before, but it puzzled me.

Regarding customers, it should've been a criminal law requirement here once the WHO finally came down on the side of masks (May or June 2020?) A sizeable minority here and overseas cannot be trusted. In France the police are involved and they're tough. At the height of Wave 2 we saw a bunch of thuggish types (not white bodybuilders/MMA incidentally) abusing a Romanian worker at Aldi Portslade because she politely asked them to put their masks on. Very close to her face with high decibels, she was close to a pasting. As well as old Covid Idiots with a death wish, mask-less teens and twenties arroganty waltzing round stores this year at the height of Covid. When it had become law.

Personally, I think both staff and customers should've worn then. Precedent, or an order, or two-wrongs ... won't help get the metrics down.

 

[CheeseRolls]

Did I also mention the numerous dirty F'ckers, going to the toilet and not washing their hands? Soap dodging Vermin.