No masks after 19th July- despite the scientific consensus for them

[herecomesthsun]

I happened to notice that we had reached 1000 posts on the other thread - so I started a new one .

@takemetocedarpoint

This is what infuriates me about the masks debate. It’s so selfish to say “I’m not worried about my risk so I won’t wear one”. When will people understand that you wear them not to protect yourself but out of consideration for those around you?

Why do so many people wear them outside?

I’ll tell you why - it’s not because they are protecting others but because they are rabidly and completely disproportionately risk averse and / or virtue signalling zero-Covid loons

But @Enb76 by not doing those things you mention, you would be curtailing your life, so there is a significant cost/harm to yourself and your children if you don't do them. You choose to do those things even though they carry risk, because they also confer benefit.

Wearing a mask causes practically no cost and absolutely no harm, for the benefit of a lesser rate of death (in your scenario). I cannot understand your position.

I wear a mask outside if I am in a crowd of people that I can't avoid. Not really otherwise.

Enb - Covid is transmitted much easier than many other diseases. Hence the protections over the last 15 months. My friend has cancer and due to the drugs she is on, can’t have the vaccine. She is at high risk if she catches Covid so needs everyone else to keep her as safe as possible.

@chickenyhead

Personal responsibility is the key phrase.

You are now free to determine for yourself.

Everyone around here has actually done that all along. No mask compliance by the majority.

Not really. How can an employee take personal responsibility if customers don’t wear masks etc?

No mask compliance by the majority

Not true round here (busy bits of London)

And, slightly yo my surprise given his vocal some posters are here, everyone I've spoken to in RL is not happy about mask-free, no SD public transport

I cannot understand your position.

Fair enough.

I personally think that everybody's life is more constrained by anxiety around Covid rather than Covid itself - where people are mostly vaccinated if at risk and most people are not at risk. The very small minority who are still at risk, are not uniquely at risk from just Covid.

Besides, the vast majority of people wearing masks are not protecting anyone, have you seen how people use them? It's a panacea and I don't like things that aren't of demonstrable use.

@Enb76

This is what infuriates me about the masks debate. It’s so selfish to say “I’m not worried about my risk so I won’t wear one”. When will people understand that you wear them not to protect yourself but out of consideration for those around you?

I'm sure they will have been vaccinated if they are so at risk and take their own precautions

I'm so fed up with this. It's because people don't wear masks that DS 30 can't leave his house, and he is double vaccinated.

Our esteemed health minister has admitted that new infections are likely to amount to at least 100,000 per day very soon. It will be incredibly hard for people to avoid

That's based on 25k per day 'baseline' and doubling every 9 days.

It's up today - 32k cases, but numbers admitted to hospital haven't been updated since 3/07. That is a shame

@takemetocedarpoint

This is what infuriates me about the masks debate. It’s so selfish to say “I’m not worried about my risk so I won’t wear one”. When will people understand that you wear them not to protect yourself but out of consideration for those around you?

There's a massive ethical issue here though. We don't usually mandate people to alter their ordinary behavior in a way to protect others.

Plenty of other things that we could easily change may kill or injure others. Every car journey puts other people at risk. Many of those are really unnecessary. Should we legislate them away through criminal law? Apparently eight million people die each year due to our use of fossil fuels. Should we legislate against unnecessary use of the TV, more than two loads of washing a week, leaving the lights on? That change in the law would undoubtedly save lives. So why aren't we doing that? Veganism - the same. It stops innocent people from dying.

Highly ethical people do avoid all unnecessary journeys, and power use, and animal products. Everyone is free to save lives by doing those things. But we don't use the criminal law to compel people.

Fossils fuel thing by the way

www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/fossil-fuels-pollution-deaths-research

So your argument is that since we're not doing everything possible to avoid unnecessary deaths we shouldn't bother doing anything?

Not at all, by all means carry on. But the criminal law is a big intrusion into private lives which is not warranted.

@Enb76 yes I know most people are not at much risk any more. But I was responding to the PP who set a scenario (not necessarily the relaity) that she and her children were specifically at higher risk of dying if they failed to wear masks, and even if that was so they would not wear masks.

Weighing the benefits (again, in her own scenario) on one hand of your child being less likely to die, against on the other hand wearing something which costs practically nothing, is a minor inconvenience at most, and is part of many people's daily work equipment even prior to the pandemic, and deciding the way she does, is what I cannot understand.

Your decision is not the same at all. For you, weighing the (large) benefits of enjoying exciting and beneficial activities as part of your and your childen's lives, against the (very small) chance that they may be injured or killed, is as far as I am concerned totally valid and I do exactly the same. My own children ski, waterski, mountain climb etc.

We did indeed mandate that people change their behaviour to protect others, when we banned smoking indoors.

Wearing masks outside makes sense if you are going from shop to shop. It's more hygienic and quicker than constantly taking it on and off. It also seems to help with hay fever!

Making people stand outside in the rain and snow is far more of an incovenience to them than wearing a mask, in my opinion. Yet that has wide societal approval. (And no I am not a smoker and yes I approve of the smoking ban, just pointing out that people widely welcome the smoking ban yet seem to think that mask wearing is somehow a draconian edict).

Just noting that in @Xenia 's scenario she even said a "much higher risk of death". Not just a small one. Set against mask-wearing? That is just crackers.

But anyone who feels safer wearing one is free to crack on

I not feel safer when I'm wearing one. People in general are safer when everybody is wearing one.

Masks don't do much to protect you, but they do a great deal to protect others from you

It's something where we all gain if we act together. But no-one gains when it's gone

There's a massive ethical issue here though. We don't usually mandate people to alter their ordinary behavior in a way to protect others.

Added to this, millions of people are significantly impaired or inconvenienced by masks, both by wearing them themselves or by others wearing them. It's not quite so selfless and kind to wear a mask when you're inhibiting people with hearing impairment, social and communication difficulties or people with a history of trauma (medical, victims of crime). Non verbal communication, expressions and clear speech are important, and it's been bloody frustrating that for the past year those concerns have been utterly dismissed and minimised. (And no, clear masks don't work in either sense as they rapidly steam up, fit poorly to have an effective outcome and still inhibit reading of facial movement)

The vaccines have a proven efficacy in society at both reducing the impact of the disease and the spread (unlike the majority of unregulated products that most people wear in public settings) But they're not such public indicators of how "kind" and "considerate" people are are they.

[quote Enb76]@Parker231

Lots of people are immune suppressed due to things like cancer or other disease or immunosuppressant drugs we don't all wander around with masks on to protect them and didn't before Covid - what's changed?[/quote]
I would happily wear a mask around immune suppressed people if it would make them feel better.

However, before the pandemic took full hold, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to wear a mask to go to a crowded store, but it would have felt very odd and counter-cultural. I was worried that I might upset people.

I'd feel a lot more comfortable occasionally wearing a mask now in that situation.

And I would probably continue to wear one on public transport, as much for other people as for myself.

I just saw this on my facebook feed. I didn't write it myself - it's a little bit American; but I do wonder what people would find in it to disagree with so very strongly.

@takemetocedarpoint I'm with you, it seems to have escaped a lot of people's understanding.

@theDudesmummy

We did indeed mandate that people change their behaviour to protect others, when we banned smoking indoors.

Smoking directly harms the smoker (but their free choice). It also causes general,cumulative harm as passive smoking.

Breathing uninhibited is beneficial to the person breathing (breathing is also not optional). It does not cause harm by default. It is only harmful in this context if the person has Covid. The worst rates in the country about 88/1000, but symptomatic people shouldn't be out, some will be in hospitals so the actual numbers of infected people going about their business in the community will be significantly lower. Most "bad" areas are half of these rates. Many areas are still low.

The disruption of sending a smoker outside is that they get a bit cold and it breaks their activity up a bit. Ultimately it's a choice. Wearing masks does inhibit people with a large range of conditions, and while they can be exempt, they should not be judged as selfish, and many struggling with others wearing them tend to struggle on quietly without asking the other person to remove them (lip reading was a legal reason to ask)