Would You Be In Favour Of Mandatory Mask Wearing Again?

[BLOCK F]

If it is mooted that we faced compulsory mask wearing, table service in pubs and all the other associated restrictions once more, then I reckon there would be little consensus of opinion amongst the population and a great deal of aggravation. After all, Wales have had tougher restrictions than England and have fared no better.

Let us just get everybody jabbed and try and get back to normality.
We cannot continuously live in fear of getting ill from anything, including COVID.

 

[Swansman]

No we should revert to the pre March 2020 government and WHO advice on mask wearing in accordance with our well established pandemic plan. As Chris Whitty, chief medical officer pointed out

"Although there is a perception that the wearing of facemasks by the public in the community and household setting may be beneficial, there is in fact very little evidence of widespread benefit from their use in this setting. Facemasks must be worn correctly, changed frequently, removed properly, disposed of safely and used in combination with good respiratory, hand, and home hygiene behaviour in order for them to achieve the intended benefit. Research also shows that compliance with these recommended behaviours when wearing facemasks for prolonged periods reduces over time."

Yup. No points in masks.

No one is wearing them here and we have the lowest number of ICU patients per million in Europe. Part of the reason is probably that we dont wear masks: no false sense of security and no unnecessary touching in the face to correct masks.

 

[e77]

Yup. No points in masks.

No one is wearing them here and we have the lowest number of ICU patients per million in Europe. Part of the reason is probably that we dont wear masks: no false sense of security and no unnecessary touching in the face to correct masks.

If I sneeze or cough while wearing a mask people are less likely to come into contact with the droplets, hence masks are a tool in reducing the spread of Covid. However they are less effective when people are closer together so in a round about way you have a point.

I can't speak for other countries but as the government in England are unlikely to reintroduce mandatory mask wearing it seems a slightly academic conversation though.

 

[Blues Guitarist]

Conclusion from a recent meta-study is: Current evidence from quantitative analyses indicates a benefit associated with handwashing, mask wearing, and physical distancing in reducing the incidence of covid-19.

Detail is here: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302

 

[dsr-burnley]

Conclusion from a recent meta-study is: Current evidence from quantitative analyses indicates a benefit associated with handwashing, mask wearing, and physical distancing in reducing the incidence of covid-19.

Detail is here: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302

That's the one that says that wearing masks reduces transmission by 53%, if I remember rightly, without ever saying what that means. Logically it should mean that if we had continued to wear masks since the first wave, the disease would have never had a second wave because it would never have got going again - the R number never got above 2, as far as I remember, and so obviously halving it would mean it never got above 1 and would never have increased. And that's before we even take into account hand washing and distancing.

Obviously evidence (especially from Europe, as well as Wales and Scotland) tells us that there is more to it than that.

 

[n1 gull]

Interesting article in the Spectator about lack of enforcement by TFL;

hroughout the pandemic, Sadiq Khan has been positively evangelical on face-coverings. The Mayor of London has waxed lyrical about their virtues throughout the pandemic, declaring that: 'my mask protects you, your mask protects me' that 'if we don’t wear masks, the virus will spread further' and calling such face-coverings 'the most unselfish thing you can do.' Ahead of Boris Johnson's July 19 unlocking, Khan attacked his decision to axe the legal requirement to wear a face covering on public transport.

Instead the Mayor insisted that wearing a mask remained 'a condition of carriage' for passengers using public transport in London, with some 500 enforcement officers patrolling the capital's trains and buses to eject the unmasked. But has the Mayor of London now effectively given up on enforcement of his rules? For figures unearthed by Steerpike suggest that your chances of being denied entry on the Tube for not wearing a mask are not even one a million – it's actually half as high as that.

A Freedom of Information request by Mr S to Transport for London (TfL), whose board is chaired by Khan, has revealed that just 121 people were refused entry on the Tube in four months between July and October 2021 – compared to a figure 100 times that for the previous 11 months. TfL had previously boasted that between the introduction of face coverings on the Tube in June 2020 and the end of May 2021, some 12,176 were refused travel – the equivalent of more than 1,100 a month.

But now that monthly figure of Tube refusals has dropped to just 30, meaning that on average only one passenger a day is refused entry despite the total of daily journeys on the underground network surpassing the two million mark. Last month just 13 passengers were refused entry in 31 days.

The lack of any kind of enforcement would suggest the tough talk on face coverings is merely another example of Covid pantomime. With the rhetoric being so very different from the reality, TfL risks putting the 'mask' into 'masquerade.'

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

Interesting article in the Spectator about lack of enforcement by TFL;

hroughout the pandemic, Sadiq Khan has been positively evangelical on face-coverings. The Mayor of London has waxed lyrical about their virtues throughout the pandemic, declaring that: 'my mask protects you, your mask protects me' that 'if we don’t wear masks, the virus will spread further' and calling such face-coverings 'the most unselfish thing you can do.' Ahead of Boris Johnson's July 19 unlocking, Khan attacked his decision to axe the legal requirement to wear a face covering on public transport.

Instead the Mayor insisted that wearing a mask remained 'a condition of carriage' for passengers using public transport in London, with some 500 enforcement officers patrolling the capital's trains and buses to eject the unmasked. But has the Mayor of London now effectively given up on enforcement of his rules? For figures unearthed by Steerpike suggest that your chances of being denied entry on the Tube for not wearing a mask are not even one a million – it's actually half as high as that.

A Freedom of Information request by Mr S to Transport for London (TfL), whose board is chaired by Khan, has revealed that just 121 people were refused entry on the Tube in four months between July and October 2021 – compared to a figure 100 times that for the previous 11 months. TfL had previously boasted that between the introduction of face coverings on the Tube in June 2020 and the end of May 2021, some 12,176 were refused travel – the equivalent of more than 1,100 a month.

But now that monthly figure of Tube refusals has dropped to just 30, meaning that on average only one passenger a day is refused entry despite the total of daily journeys on the underground network surpassing the two million mark. Last month just 13 passengers were refused entry in 31 days.

The lack of any kind of enforcement would suggest the tough talk on face coverings is merely another example of Covid pantomime. With the rhetoric being so very different from the reality, TfL risks putting the 'mask' into 'masquerade.'

The problem is the refuseniks know there isn't a lot TFL can do to enforce...

 

[n1 gull]

I've not been on a tube for ages so don't know how many people are wearing them?

I'm going to West Ham on Wednesday so I suppose I'll find out for myself

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Interesting article in the Spectator about lack of enforcement by TFL;

hroughout the pandemic, Sadiq Khan has been positively evangelical on face-coverings. The Mayor of London has waxed lyrical about their virtues throughout the pandemic, declaring that: 'my mask protects you, your mask protects me' that 'if we don’t wear masks, the virus will spread further' and calling such face-coverings 'the most unselfish thing you can do.' Ahead of Boris Johnson's July 19 unlocking, Khan attacked his decision to axe the legal requirement to wear a face covering on public transport.

Instead the Mayor insisted that wearing a mask remained 'a condition of carriage' for passengers using public transport in London, with some 500 enforcement officers patrolling the capital's trains and buses to eject the unmasked. But has the Mayor of London now effectively given up on enforcement of his rules? For figures unearthed by Steerpike suggest that your chances of being denied entry on the Tube for not wearing a mask are not even one a million – it's actually half as high as that.

A Freedom of Information request by Mr S to Transport for London (TfL), whose board is chaired by Khan, has revealed that just 121 people were refused entry on the Tube in four months between July and October 2021 – compared to a figure 100 times that for the previous 11 months. TfL had previously boasted that between the introduction of face coverings on the Tube in June 2020 and the end of May 2021, some 12,176 were refused travel – the equivalent of more than 1,100 a month.

But now that monthly figure of Tube refusals has dropped to just 30, meaning that on average only one passenger a day is refused entry despite the total of daily journeys on the underground network surpassing the two million mark. Last month just 13 passengers were refused entry in 31 days.

The lack of any kind of enforcement would suggest the tough talk on face coverings is merely another example of Covid pantomime. With the rhetoric being so very different from the reality, TfL risks putting the 'mask' into 'masquerade.'

I agree with mask wearing on the tube when it’s packed

But Khan has been spotted a couple of times recently at mass events without masks whilst criticising the policy in place.

 

[Weststander]

Masks on London Underground & packed trains to/from London:

From what we witnessed the sea change in public opinion happened about the beginning of August. A couple of weeks after the final Lockdown was lifted on 19 July.

We went overseas from London City in late July. Still, about 90% of people were wearing masks on trains here.

On our return 9 days later, it was ‘spot the mask’. Possibly just a few elderly folk wearing them on a packed commuter train from London Bridge to Brighton. The contrast was stark.

My instinct was that people were sick of the “damn things” on their faces. Especially in a warm season.

 

[Weststander]

Yup. No points in masks.

No one is wearing them here and we have the lowest number of ICU patients per million in Europe. Part of the reason is probably that we dont wear masks: no false sense of security and no unnecessary touching in the face to correct masks.

Have Swedish officials/scientists established why, like the UK, they have favourable key pandemic metrics just now, compared to the disastrous 4th wave on much of the continent?

 

[Swansman]

Have Swedish officials/scientists established why, like the UK, they have favourable key pandemic metrics just now, compared to the disastrous 4th wave on much of the continent?

View attachment 142379

Not really following the debate on a national level anymore but from the little I've heard they think the main reason is because we we're a bit slow in the distribution of vaccine (big country, lots of logistics) so people are still quite immune. Meaning they expect another wave here later. If that wave never comes then I guess there's some other explanation. We'll see. Worst case it comes for Christmas.

 

[Motogull]

Masks on London Underground & packed trains to/from London:

From what we witnessed the sea change in public opinion happened about the beginning of August. A couple of weeks after the final Lockdown was lifted on 19 July.

We went overseas from London City in late July. Still, about 90% of people were wearing masks on trains here.

On our return 9 days later, it was ‘spot the mask’. Possibly just a few elderly folk wearing them on a packed commuter train from London Bridge to Brighton. The contrast was stark.

My instinct was that people were sick of the “damn things” on their faces. Especially in a warm season.

Well because of Johnson's weakness, the reluctant maskers binned them straight away and gradually most others realised there was little point being in such a reducing minority. Wearing bins is a bit annoying once a mask goes on, but not worth bleating about.

 

[Weststander]

Well because of Johnson's weakness, the reluctant maskers binned them straight away and gradually most others realised there was little point being in such a reducing minority. Wearing bins is a bit annoying once a mask goes on, but not worth bleating about.

I try and steer clear of party politics on Covid stuff if I can. There are paragons of virtue, back seat drivers and hindsight merchants on both sides of the response debates. Some (politicians and the public) would have society in lockdowns most the time and kids deprived of a proper education and all hospitality businesses in liquidation, others arrogantly deny the effect of vaccines or masks.

On masks though, imho it should be a criminal law or nothing at all. Especially on buses, trains, planes and similar. Advice, light regulations, etc etc just get ignored.

Further afield, some insightful calls from Austria and Germany this week on R4 and LBC. Germans saying that in their small towns restrictions/laws were blatantly ignored by locals for months ….. on a who’s to find out basis. From Vienna and Innsbruck, first hand stories of mass rule breaking, also nonsensical laws.

Interesting I thought, because it turns out that other than Scandinavians, Europeans including us Brits are pretty blase/arrogant if we can get away with it.

 

[Motogull]

Brits are pretty blase/arrogant if we can get away with it.

Yup. Fukk you retail workers! Bearing in mind someone in a shop could be in close proximity to loads of people every shift, I still wear masks in them out of respect for the shop workers that do. Its about them not me.

 

[Weststander]

Yup. Fukk you retail workers! Bearing in mind someone in a shop could be in close proximity to loads of people every shift, I still wear masks in them out of respect for the shop workers that do. Its about them not me.

There was a press conference of Whitty etc and the health secretary about 6 weeks ago, where they asked us to wear masks in shops out of respect for the vulnerable.

So I’ve tried to wear one since, for that reason, part of a collective getting numbers down.

The irony is that on my shops at Lidl and Sainsbury’s, half the elderly aren’t bothering.

What’s that about? Anyone here know?

Any pensioners here who don’t wear masks in supermarkets?

A wild guess …. still vain females.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

There was a press conference of Whitty etc and the health secretary about 6 weeks ago, where they asked us to wear masks in shops out of respect for the vulnerable.

So I’ve tried to wear one since, for that reason, part of a collective getting numbers down.

The irony is that on my shops at Lidl and Sainsbury’s, half the elderly aren’t bothering.

What’s that about? Anyone here know?

Any pensioners here who don’t wear masks in supermarkets?

A wild guess …. still vain females.

Weirdly, I went to a garden centre yesterday, and the only people wearing masks were the elderly, and me!

 

[Weststander]

Weirdly, I went to a garden centre yesterday, and the only people wearing masks were the elderly, and me!

Try; Lidl Goldstone Retail Park, ASDA Hollingbury, Sainsburys West Hove.

Gardeners are a classy lot.

 

[e77]

As has been said elsewhere if the government want masks warn again then legally mandate it or don't bother because asking people to do it hasn't worked.

 

[Weststander]

As has been said elsewhere if the government want masks warn again then legally mandate it or don't bother because asking people to do it hasn't worked.

It seems to be only way.

Supermarkets, taxis and all public transport. Why not?