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 ?

@masksagain Numbers show its flu season early. Vaccinations reduce its grip but we have far too many who don’t get the jab and then end up in hospital. Every year flu kills some people and sometimes it’s more than other years. I’d be pushing jabs much more and I’m not wearing a mask again. More people need to take responsibility and get the jab - early - when they have supplies.

The issue is that people are making up bonkers conspiracies about the reason we're being asked to wear masks in medical settings.

Your attitude stinks.

"Vulnerable" does not mean bed-ridden. "Vulnerable" means healthy or otherwise people who would be f&&ked if they got flu.
You want children with asthma, people on chemotherapy, elderly people with zero health conditions to stay at home because you're too f&&king selfish to wear a mask?

Get a grip.

I dont want them to stay at home... its the logic of people thinking they would be effective in a Dr's surgery, when the majority of vulnerable people are still going out and about every day in maskless placss!

You're mentioning children with asthma? Do they not go to school? Elderly people - don't they need to travel on a bus, shop in a supermarket etc...

You can wear a mask and pretend you're a hero... if that makes you feel better than everyone else.

Let me think... Where would there be a higher proportion of sick people, where it would make sense to wear a mask to protect myself and others....

And I don't think I'm better than everyone else. I think that the medical professionals and scientists who tell us it's a good idea to wear masks know better. At least I'm not so arrogant to think I know better than the experts

These threads always attract the hard of thinking. The conventional cloth mask is unlikely to prevent somebody getting infected, but it will go some way to prevent somebody who is already infected from spreading the infection, when they sneeze, cough etc.

No we do not need to learn from Asia. I travelled to China last year. They are so crowded in certain places, sharing bathrooms and washing-up places with entire blocks of flats using just 2 or 3 washing facilities. They spit on the floors - a propper flemmy spit. One guy just stopped in a Museum and spat on the floor next to an exhibit. It was not a one off, I must have seen it 20 times in 1 week.

They might wear masks, but if you look closely at them - they are FILTHY. Theyre grey and full of dirt. I would say the majority are probably wearing them to conceal identity from the communist government constantly spying on them all rather than being infection control.

Here’s one for the “conspiracy theorists”:
Starmer: Masks are not back, nor are they mandatory.
Starmer: We might bring in facial recognition cameras.
Are these statements connected?

I've been wearing one to visit an unwell relative and more generally at GP and hospital visits but not elsewhere. Seems a small thing to do to slow the spread of this flu epidemic and protect people who already have fragile health. No biggie!

@SabrinaCarpetCleaner

If I sneeze, I do so into the crook of my elbow (always),

I do this, I call it a government sanctioned sneeze because I read about it in a pamphlet sent out years ago, way before covid, about infection control. Might have been when bird flu was worried about.

They won’t do a home visit at all plus I work so have to fit the doctors around that

sometimes I am at the doctors as my white blood count has dropped badly and I’ve got an infection
I am more vulnerable then. The week before I might have had a normal blood count and been able to go out and about fairly normally

I have to balance it because it’s lifelong immunocompromised and I was diagnosed at 31 and I can’t spend my entire life alone inside. But people who are unwell could spend a few days at home

@LouBBB So you have a hospital grade mask do you? Most of us don’t and they don’t stop much. Hospitals should maybe stop visitors? If people are vulnerable on line consultations should be available.

Wow, snarky much?!

Yes I do have proper masks, thanks for asking. Why would hospitals stop visitors? My relative doesn't have long left but I see no reason for them to spend their last days alone...or to hasten their end by giving them a cold or flu.

Wind your neck in.

Just a precaution. I’ve been standing near the doors for my daily commute on the train as so many people coughing and spluttering on the train.

🤣🤣🤣
What an absolute idiot you are.

Oh do go and educate yourself. Not all vulnerable people are at deaths door and need to hide away.

I am classed an vulnerable because I'm on chemotherapy. I am more than capable of working (you know paying taxes), looking after my kids and making my own way to and from appointments. Oh my DH also is due to a transplant and taking Immunosuppressants. Remember Covid? He shielded for 18 months not seeing anyone but me and DD. He also worked full time, no benefits or furlough in our household.

We are allowed out in society believe it or not. As vulnerable we make it a choice if we go out in crowded spaces and the like. We don't have a choice about seeing medical professionals who see dozens of other patients per day. That is why these places mask up or ask others to.

@LouBBB My neck is in a good place thank you but you know as well as I do that unless you have the hospital grade masks you are wasting your time. By all means wear a mask but don’t expect me to. If visiting is causing health issues then it’s obviously something that should stop.

I’m not talking about China.

Places like Singapore are very clean. More that there’s a culture to wear masks when ill and not spread viruses around.

Im not giving myself away too much, but I was in one of the most western/modern provinces of China and experienced this.

I think for some people, there’s a traumatic response - masks remind them of the early stage of the covid pandemic.

I’m not suggesting that their response trumps others e.g. those who have been bereaved / become a carer for a loved one / have become disabled / have had a poorer outcome / had treatment cancelled / can no longer work as a result of nosocomial infections, I’m just trying to understand how in the face of all the research, all the additional illness, huge increase in long term sickness etc, that some people have such a strong reaction to masking in a medical setting.

Reducing infection in a medical setting is logical. It makes sense to reduce the numbers becoming unwell or more unwell from attending a medical setting (staff and patients/visitors). This includes people going for preventative health reasons too e.g. babies going for vaccinations, a woman going for a smear, a child going for an asthma review. There are vulnerable people weighing up whether it’s more harmful to attend than not attend.

Masking is a pain in the bum, (as is other protective equipment used in a range of industries, hobbies, day-to-day activities). Some people get emotive about it, some politicise it, but it makes sense. The risk of catching something from the doctor or the waiting room should be reduced where possible. The reverse makes no sense whatsoever.

@Charlottespider Precisely about the “trauma” response. Masks remind people of government slogans such as “let’s keep doing the right thing”, “hands face space”. People think of the Queen dutifully wearing her mask and sitting alone at her husband’s funeral, the day after her prime minister partied. Whether they intended to or not, the govt politicised masks by making them compulsory. They became a massive symbol of virtue and compliance. And some people think that by wearing them, we are creeping back towards those times, especially if they become mandated, which is why I think the govt is doing the right thing by not mandating them. Nothing wrong with advising them, which is how I think it should have been before.

Why would you not?

@scalt,does that reflect your personal view too?

I'm not yet thinking that asking the public to wear masks is creeping back towards lockdown: I think that's how it should have been before, that we were "asked" to wear them, not mandated in law. But I'm keeping a sharp look-out for other "controls" being brought back in, by stealth. The original mask mandate was a screeching U-turn from "masks are worse than useless", and I wonder if it was one way that the government tried to make easing lockdown more politically acceptable, since they knew that they would have to do so eventually, but their campaign of fear had worked too well: the public were so terrified, that many of them wanted lockdown and furlough to continue for ever (Mumsnet was living proof of this), so they thought "let's compromise and make the public wear masks, and keep our fingers crossed that we can then ease lockdown".

I do think that as far the government was concerned (and not just ours), mandating masks had little to do with controlling the virus, and everything to do with controlling the public. It was an easy way to make it appear that the government was doing something, with the useful by-product of a very prominent visual symbol screaming "there is a pandemic!", in case people forgot this, and an easy way to spot people who didn't believe in it. By all accounts, Boris Johnson kept "forgetting" his mask when doing his public strutting through hospitals etc, and his handlers had to remind him of his "duty" to wear one by showing him a montage of world leaders, all wearing one, followed by photos od him not wearing one.

Yes, I am deeply, deeply cynical, and not ashamed of it at all.