Are masks being advised again in general?

[masksagain]

Had a hospital appt yest morning was called beforehand told I had to wear a mask. GP appt yest afternoon and when I arrived told the same thing ? Are masks back. AIBU to be worried about this ?

Nice to know you see protecting the vulnerable as ridiculous.

It may not be mandatory, but I've had sinusitus all week and now have a cough, so I masked up when I went to Tesco this morning. Slightly inconvenient for me, but possibly I've stopped somebody else feeling shit on xmas day! I think it's one of the things you do. Unless it's a fitted one with a filter, it won't stop you catching something, but a simple one will stop some of the stream of bugs when I sneeze or cough.

Who’s forcing anyone to wear a mask?

It’s sensible for healthcare services to ask 1) to protect the many vulnerable people visiting, and 2) to try to protect their staff from the many circulating viruses and therefore avoid lots of people off sick at the busiest time of the year.

Of course you may decline.

What the same area that gave us covid--19 and have wet markets? I wouldn't take advice from them.

Well i think people walking down the street naked infront of children or me for that matter is pretty offensive. I don't want to see old mens dicks flapping about why I'm walking down the street 🤮

My large gp surgery texted today to say the majority of the doctors are off with flu. No capacity to see patients. They’re trying to find locums but are not holding their breath. So you can see why medical facilities are trying to minimise the spread.

In our GP surgery we're obviously trying to protect the vulnerable people in the waiting room- but also trying to keep staff well enough to actually see patients. There's no slack in the system at this time of year (when is there!), and if we start to lose staff to flu (or other illnesses severe enough to keep us off work) there's no back up and we can't just shut the doors. Some staff may be vulnerable themselves to more severe disease as well. We're all vaccinated for flu, but that's not always 100%, and no covid vaccines for health care staff this year.

No sorry, more S.E Asian countries like Singapore. They seem to take infection control more seriously.

Agree about wet markets.

Just stop. Thank you.

What about people that can’t work from home? And/or don’t get sick pay?

Will there be fines?
For littering the pavement with masks?
How many billions of them ended up in the oceans, again?

One thing interests me. Suppose that Partygate was never found out, and Saint Boris and his merry men got away with it. Would the government (whoever it might be) now be imposing seasonal mask mandates? Was a legacy of Partygate that no politician now dares to mandate anything of the sort? I sometimes think that if it wasn’t for partygate, we might still be having (extremely damaging) seasonal restrictions on our movements.

What are you talking about ?

Haha this sounds like my DH on a work call today with a colleague (dMIL is very vulnerable and we're seeing her at Christmas) "Im going to work from home now till Christmas eve. Too many bugs in the office"
Colleague thought he meant listening devices!! Equally paranoid 😆

Those of us who can should do our bit to reduce the risk to help offset those who can't.

I'm wishing I had worn a mask when I was travelling last week, had a great time away, but was on packed trains and I could have done without this week off sick with a really horrible cold 😢

I think it's more that we are aware of infection after COVID. I think mask wearing if you have cold symptoms and you are going to a GP waiting room or hospital is probably sensible to reduce the spread.
There is a lot of flu around and it's peaking at Christmas when people are on holiday and the hospitals are at breaking point too. But the numbers don't look horrific, just rising quickly.
I used to get a cold most winters as a GP I do wonder if I'd worn a mask it would have helped as I had no colds during the COVID pandemic (although there were fewer respiratory illnesses due to less mixing of people) who knows?
GP waiting rooms are awful places when respiratory illnesses are rife, especially this week. Seeing one cold after another for 2 hours solid certainly exposes you.
So I don't think you need to be terribly worried but just be cautious about hand washing and sneezing and avoiding people with coughs and colds where you can. I think wanting to stop the medical staff get infected is important too. If all the GPS in a practice go down with flu it's a crisis.

Masks are the silliest bloody thing ever I'm sad I live in a dumb era

What am I talking about? Seasonal mini-lockdowns, or whatever silly name the government might give them to avoid calling them “lockdowns”, to ease the perennial winter NHS crisis. The possibility of this was hinted at, “restrictions from October to Easter”, they were nudging us with this just in case. Most people forgot it when Partygate hit the headlines.

Posters were talking about this on another thread the op wanted to wear a mask flying and people were wishing they had because they had caught various. "Lurgies" i was on a bus today and it stops at a hospital and people had masks on.

I attended physio 2 weeks ago in an outpatients hospital, on coming to get me she said she can talk to me in corridors/rehab room etc but minute curtain comes round for examination (even though I remain clothed and was the only patient) she has to mask up. That had come in the week before.

"Same area" apparently now means "two thirds of the human race and a third of the land mass, from Turkey to Japan, Russia to Indonesia". That's quite the generalisation.

Our hospital has brought masks back temporarily due to the increasing numbers of patients (and staff) with flu and other respiratory illnesses. It’s due to peak just before Christmas and I expect masks will go again in the New Year.

I really don’t see the issue. If it protects vulnerable patients and keeps staff in work surely that has to be a good thing?

The vast majority of patients have no issue with it. Occasionally you get whole families of ‘mask exempt’ - so I just let the patient in with no mask on and ask the relatives to wait outside. It’s about risk reduction, not infringement of civil liberties!

The issue is that they're to deter visitors because they're so uncomfortable, not for any anti virus reason.

Well a reduction in visitors during flu season is a good thing so I have no issue with that!

Yes I popped into the hospital today to pick up something and the department had masks at the door which is fair.