To feel like we are just existing now

[Ghostlyglow]

In a miserable, joyless world of queues and masks. A couple of friends have lost their jobs this week. Where are we going with this?When will it end?

Here's a garment that the anti-mask rebels can wear with pride, on public transport. The authorities won't even be able to order you to take it off! I'd wear it if it wasn't warm weather. There'll be a market for anti-lockdown slogan masks before we know it, saying things like "this is not my new normal", or "forced to wear this", or "lockdown is killing people", or ones with Cummings's or Bojo's face saying "just use common sense".

It is. The government have made themselves look tossers over this. For months the "experts" have said there was no scientific evidence a mask or face "covering" as they like to call them made very much difference.

It's the public not understanding the role of masks that has been the problem. I was trained as a nurse. The role of masks is the same as it always has been - they protect others, not the wearer (apart from N95 type masks, but I'm referring to standard surgical masks here). This hasn't changed and the scientific advice hasn't changed.

When they were saying masks didn't help it was because

-individuals were wearing them thinking they would protect themselves - they weren't. Masks are worn in hospitals to protect patients from staff. That's how they are being introduced in the community now - to protect people from the wearer.

-they were, indeed still are, wearing them incorrectly and doffing them incorrectly. The danger here is in creating a false sense of security. People tend to abandon all other precautions, social distancing, hand washing, not touching faces, if they believe a mask is protecting them. Wearing a mask under your chin, under your nose, with big gaps at the side or fiddling with it constantly and then touching it when removing it risks getting infected.

So, there's no confusion and the science hasn't changed. Masks didn't ,and still don't, protect the wearer. In order for masks to be effective everyone has to wear them to stop the virus from being spread. They don't protect the wearer.

Member of the Public: Hello Mr Police Officer, I'd like to report I've been the victim of xyz crime on the bus/train or in a shop.

Police Officer: Could you give me a description of the person?

Member of the Public: They has brown hair.

Police Officer: Anything else? That's not much to go on.

Member of the Public: Sorry, I don't know, they had a face covering.

How on earth can somebody be confined to their home because they exercise their choice not to wear a mask?

Absolute nonsense.

I understand the rationale behind face coverings. Back before lockdown I said even if they don’t protect the wearer surely if everyone wears them they’ll offer protection. But no one had to wear them then, when it might have had some effect and stopped this mess getting so bad. I don’t believe or trust the government. And I’m rapidly running out of tolerance for it being my job to stop random people getting the virus. As someone said the other day on MN, people will only put up with this level of state control to protect randoms for so long.

@Nihiloxica

Then in my opinion, you should be confined to your home.

You think everyone should be imprisoned in their homes indefinitely.

Sadly for you and your controlling impulses, the UK is still mostly a free society and people don't have to do what you say.

I know it's been fun having the "do what I say or you are a murderer" thing to play with for a while and it will be hard to give that up.

But the truth is, you can't confine me to my home. I was willing to stay in for a while before I realised the power it would give to petty tyrants. I will never obey another lockdown.

If they won't follow safety requirements, then yes they should.

You petulantly stamping your foot, saying you want life back to normal won't end this pandemic. If you want life to head back towards normal then you have to follow the advice and the rules set out.

There's a very real possibility that this virus can be controlled and contained so that life can start to get back to normal, with some adjustments. But only if everyone makes the effort and does what is needed. If you all just refuse and then go back to life pre lockdown, in all likelihood we will go back to the beginning and see an exponential rise. What then?

What are you calling for? People to just be left to die? Essential services to close due to lack of staff? Is that what you are calling for?

Life can start to get back to normal if infection can be supressed - that means people have to suppress it by social distancing, wearing masks, using track and trace. Otherwise it will just spread again.

If all it takes to make a monotonous life of work and sleep feel worth living is the occasional two week break on the Costa Del Sol then you are really selling your life short. Every day is a gift from God.

How on earth can somebody be confined to their home because they exercise their choice not to wear a mask?

You can be refused access to public transport, to shops, to private business.

Performing pointless rituals to calm the irrational fears of the public closes my airways and makes it hard for me to breathe.

then stay home.
If you are so uneducated that you confuse your opinion with facts, you should use that time to research the current situation.

I understand the rationale behind face coverings. Back before lockdown I said even if they don’t protect the wearer surely if everyone wears them they’ll offer protection.

But government knew how the public would react - we can see it now irl and also on here. They don't wear them properly, ignore social distancing if they are wearing them or refuse to wear them because it's a violation of their human rights.

Government said the same about lockdown when people were clamouring for it. They said that people wouldn't tolerate it for long, and they were right. We're our own worst enemies.

Sadly for you and your controlling impulses, the UK is still mostly a free society and people don't have to do what you say.

well, they do have to obey the law... there's a reason we are not allowing antisocial elements to run feral, it works reasonably well.

I know it's been fun having the "do what I say or you are a murderer" thing to play with for a while and it will be hard to give that up.
It might be fun to you to deny the pandemic, but the grown ups are actually involved with the effects and trying to limit the mess.

But the truth is, you can't confine me to my home. I was willing to stay in for a while before I realised the power it would give to petty tyrants. I will never obey another lockdown.

if you are in the UK ,you have never been in an actual lockdown and confined to your home, so that's lucky. IF idiots make the situation so bad we actually have to be experience a proper lockdown, you'll just do as you are told. You can keep your petulant rebellion from your sofa
Let's just hope idiots won't make it a necessity, some of us like to have a life.

well, they do have to obey the law... there's a reason we are not allowing antisocial elements to run feral, it works reasonably well.

Worked well last weekend didn't it?

You can also be heavily fined when you are in a public place like the street.

@BubblyBarbara

If all it takes to make a monotonous life of work and sleep feel worth living is the occasional two week break on the Costa Del Sol then you are really selling your life short. Every day is a gift from God.

So being alive is the only thing that has any meaning? We can just abandon schools, hospitals, charities, culture, and everything else that gives us quality of life and achieve a higher plane of satisfaction by sitting on two square feet of grass and enjoying breathing in and out for all eternity.

Worked well last weekend didn't it?
It was a political decision to allow them...people still have a right to express themselves.

It was a political decision to allow them...people still have a right to express themselves.

And the violence that went with it? Antisocial elements running feral? Containing them didn't exactly work.

And I have a right to express my objection to face covering by not covering my face.

phil I agree with at least about the first lockdown, we could just about stretch to the furlough. There will be no option to do the same thing for the second wave, so we will have no choice but to battle on. I am not wishing to be pessimistic but we will have the same problems, but this time without the financial cushion and in the middle of the winter. Second waves are notoriously worse if we look at what happened with the Spanish flu. We are just at the beginning, not at the end and I wonder how many really understand this.

And I have a right to express my objection to face covering by not covering my face.

And businesses and service providers have the right to refuse you entry on safety grounds. So, don't wear a mask if that's what floats your boat but don't expect others to capitulate. Hopefully business owners will understand the need to keep their staff safe and will ban anyone not wearing a mask or provide staff with n95 grade and above masks so that they are protected.

And businesses and service providers have the right to refuse you entry on safety grounds

That suits me, I don't need to go into any of the shops anyway. If the corner shop insists on a mask then DH can go.

And businesses and service providers have the right to refuse you entry on safety grounds

Sure, but they won't, because they are even more motivated to escape from this New Normal panic than I am.

Also, even where they are compulsory, because this is not (regrettably for some) a totalitarian state, there will be enough exceptions that it will be easy enough to get around it.

Measures like this need buy in. And I'm not buying.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

And businesses and service providers have the right to refuse you entry on safety grounds

That suits me, I don't need to go into any of the shops anyway. If the corner shop insists on a mask then DH can go.

Then that's fine. No one is saying you need to wear a mask at home or in an outside space are they?

Not yet.

Sure, but they won't, because they are even more motivated to escape from this New Normal panic than I am.

Then people can make up their own minds about using those businesses. Hopefully they'll be unionised and the unions will support the staff being put at risk so that only a small minority of businesses ignore the public health advice.

If you choose to put other people at risk then that's down to you. You can't expect no consequence though. If enough people think like you we will be in a second wave before long - then what? No doubt you'll then be on here screaming that the NHS has fallen over and people that you know are dying at home because there are no beds available in hospital. I.dont support the government at all - they've mishandled this in my opinion by not acting quickly enough or licking down hard enough. The consequence of that has been higher rates of infection that are now taking far longer to control but that's the consequence of them not acting quicker at the beginning. If man learns anything it should be that he can't control nature. This is one such example. We can't make nature do what we want just by stamping our feet. We aren't in control here.

How on earth can somebody be confined to their home because they exercise their choice not to wear a mask?

They're not. They may be denied entry to certain shops, or denied the use of public transport, but they're free to leave their homes and do whatever they want in public, or in places where the staff/owners don't mind them not wearing masks.

I run a small office based business. It's MY right to control who comes into that office and I WILL impose my own rules as I think fit. If a minority of clients don't like that, they can bugger off someone else.