When do we think will masks become optional?

[sailorsinthedancehall]

November? There was mention of social distancing no longer being a thing by then?

Opticians everywhere are loving the washing up liquid dry soap tips for glasses wearers that are appearing all over the internet! £££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££

Probably not till late spring next year - Easter I'd reckon.

They will probably be enforced in more places before they begin to become optional/not required. Maybe they’ll be here to stay if it deems they offer some protection against other communicable (winter) infections.

Next Summer or Autumn I should imagine.

Haven’t got a clue like everybody else, we can only guess. I very much doubt it will be this year.

Surely they are, in effect, optional at the moment? There doesn't seem to be any enforcement and lots of people aren't wearing them. Some will have good reasons to not wear them and some just don't want to wear them.

Not sure many people think they are a magical mask of immunity (and I am bemused by the number of people wearing them under their chin/constantly fiddling with them/covering mouth not nose/ shoving them randomly into their handbag when they take them off) but I can't see that wearing a mask badly increases the risk to other people around you and there is some evidence that wearing one correctly may reduce risk to others. So the current policy doesn't seem unreasonable or such a big deal really.

Not before spring, as the risks of increase during the cooler winter virus season are just too great.

Those who think they make no difference to transmission are clearly not keeping up with the evolving the evidence base

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-07-08-oxford-covid-19-study-face-masks-and-coverings-work-act-now

Next summer, I think.

March 2021 or March 2022 are the two dates I've heard today through colleagues who have contacts in different fields

Until there's a vaccine.

They'll be around for a while, you need to find a way to come to terms with it as the new normal.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/new-research-explains-how-effective-18782123

[quote Cato31]@moretolifethanthis2020

Face coverings reduce infections from flu and colds, as well as Covid 19, so the "muzzles" as you so charmingly put it will likely be here until at least next spring.[/quote]
Mask wearing has not been made compulsory to combat flu

last week only 1.5% of all deaths were Covid-related but they are the ones that matter. All the other deaths are unimportant.

Summer 2021

All the other deaths are unimportant

They clearly are NOT unimportant, they just won't start multiplying themselves exponentially if we ignore them.

People who moan about the low death rate meaning we didn't need to take drastic measures, fail to understand how the drastic measures brought about the low death rates.

People who moan about the low death rate meaning we didn't need to take drastic measures, fail to understand how the drastic measures brought about the low death rates

Except they didn’t. You only have to look at Sweden to see that.

I think spring next year.

People who moan about the low death rate meaning we didn't need to take drastic measures, fail to understand how the drastic measures brought about the low death rates

Except they didn’t. You only have to look at Sweden to see that

My understanding is that Sweden took less drastic measures than the other Scandinavian countries and had correspondingly higher death rates?

@Bishybarnybee

All the other deaths are unimportant

They clearly are NOT unimportant, they just won't start multiplying themselves exponentially if we ignore them.

People who moan about the low death rate meaning we didn't need to take drastic measures, fail to understand how the drastic measures brought about the low death rates.

The death rate has been falling long before compulsory wearing of masks and has not increased despite many other restrictions being removed

I think people will end up slowly not complying with the masks as you said a lot of places dont enforce them anyway.
They'll get scrapped officially as soon as it starts to effect the economy ie people stop going to the high Street or cinemas or anywhere where they are required because they don't want to wear them.

The death rate has fallen in Sweden in line with other Scandinavian countries with no lockdown, compulsory masks, etc so clearly those things aren’t responsible for reducing it.

When the next economic dataset comes in.

I see M&S has just cut 7k jobs due to move online.

I think we should wear them forever as a visual sign that we're good, caring people.

When an effective vaccine kicks in - so not until next summer, maybe longer.

Whether you mind them or not moaning about them isn't going to help. It's a public health issue, simple as that.