Waterstones and mask-wearing

[VanGoSunflowers]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57832560

How many businesses do you think will follow suit?
And why is the cynic in me thinking that many businesses will look at their key demographic and either take a stance on mask wearing (or not in some cases) based on how likely their clientele are to want mask-wearing to continue?

Are they really wanting to keep everyone safe or do they just want your money…

I think it’s meaningless really. “Encourage”? Either I’m allowed to come in and spend my money or not. “We’ve received a directive from Head Office that we’d like you to wear a mask and there’s an A4 poster on the door to that effect, but do what you like really” doesn’t mean anything to me.

In practice, I’m pregnant and huge and battling to breathe, so it’s all I can do to arrange click and collect from the local independent rather than darken the door of Amazon.

I've worked throughout in an environment with no masks or social distancing. We havent had a single case of covid. I'm double jabbed. I feel perfectly safe going into a shop where most of the adults are likely to be jabbed now and unlikely to be sneezing,coughing or licking me as happens daily at work! I'm going to spend more time in shops that aren't going to fuss about facemasks. They don't make me feel safer, they are just an inconvenience that I've put up with since last year.

@ihatefacemasks Ditto. Will suck it and see, but any hint of hassle and I won’t be heading back. Big Waterstone’s spender previously and have always actively chosen them over Amazon (in a previous life I worked in publishing so have been very anti-Amazon for years).

Suppose I’ll have to try and seek out indie bookstores that aren’t as authoritarian and judgmental in their messaging.

@TempsPerdu as a carer for a CEV I will be very pleased not to see you in Waterstones. 👍

No-one will be wearing the awful things by the end of August. Heat, the return to normal life and a reduction in cases will be the death of masks for most people.

I have a medical exemption and am fed up with being questioned and treated with hostility. I won’t go to these shops. I loath online shopping. My local London shopping area is a go to place but temporary (?!) bike lanes and other Covid restrictions … make it a really unpleasant experience.

Almost all the restaurants in my town, and the swimming pool, have already released statements saying they will be continuing to operate in the way they have been - ordering at tables, masks unless seated and no bookings of groups of more than 6, swimming pool still mask wearing except when swimming and one way system throughout. I’m in Torbay and numbers now are pretty much double what they were at their highest so I can see why they’re doing it. I can’t see it ever ending though.

Another plus is the staff can just point at the sign and roll their eyes(internally) if any twat asks 'why you got that on your face, we got ahhhhhhrr freeeeeedom innit!'. Because those cunts will be out in force.

I work in a shop and hope they will still insist on masks. I know the research carried out shows that a majority of our customers want masking-wearing to continue, and as Covid rates are already very high locally and we have struggling to stay open with so many staff absences due to illness and isolation, it makes far more sense to insist on masks until all adults who want to can be fully vaccinated.

Mask-wearing, not masking-wearing.

I hope all shops keep screens at tills, one way systems, and hand gel. I would defend any shop that refused to serve someone without a face covering, unless genuinely exempt. If someone is genuinely exempt then they have had 18 months to get the appropriate lanyard.

Regardless of the motive of the shop.

I hope all shops keep screens at tills, one way systems, and hand gel.

Beside the point I know but, one-way systems? What shops still have these? I’ve not seen any for months.

I hope all shops keep screens at tills, one way systems, and hand gel

Well the screens have recently been shown to do more harm than good, the one way systems are completely pointless if not counterproductive and the virus is largely airborne rather than spread via fomite transmission - so essentially you’re asking for the continuation of hygiene theatre.

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-transmission-perspex-screens-scrapped-b1867019.html

I wear a mask for 12 hours a day at work.

I am perfectly happy to wear one in Waterstones too.

In fact, I will be wearing one in any shop or enclosed indoor space, as this isn't hard. It's simple common sense.

People need to get over themselves if they find it 'too hard' -

Covid predominately spreads through droplets via the air. That is how the vast majority of people contract it. The key to minimising air transmission is good ventilation and when good ventilation cannot be achieved, wearing a mask will reduce your chance of air transmission.

Now, I haven’t been into a Waterstones shop for a while, but they’re not known for being wide open spaces with lots of windows!

If someone with covid coughs inside Waterstones while browsing the nonfiction shelves, the droplets from their cough will hang in the air for a solid few minutes. Anyone who breathes those droplets in will be at risk of catching COVID.

That is why you need to wear a mask indoors.

Beside the point I know but, one-way systems? What shops still have these? I’ve not seen any for months

My local Waterstone’s, as it happens. Whenever DD and I want to visit the children’s section we are instructed to manoeuvre the buggy along a narrow, sinuous path through literally every other department - rather than just cut straight to the children’s corner, literally yards from the store entrance.

I should add that a person infected with covid doesn’t need to cough for droplets to pass into the air. Singing or even just talking will also do it.

@newnortherner111

I hope all shops keep screens at tills, one way systems, and hand gel. I would defend any shop that refused to serve someone without a face covering, unless genuinely exempt. If someone is genuinely exempt then they have had 18 months to get the appropriate lanyard.

Regardless of the motive of the shop.

And which 'appropriate lanyard' would this be? Also how do shop staff tell who's 'genuinely' exempt and who isn't?

@tanstaafl

Maybe we stop thinking about ourselves and our 10 minutes in WS and think about the staff there for 8/9 hours?

Exactly. Maybe they just want to protect their staff so they're not constantly going off sick. 🤷‍♀️

It's a pragmatic approach that I think will seem reasonable to most sensible people.

Good for Waterstones. Most businesses are going this way. I’ll be wearing a mask everywhere that’s enclosed indoors but far more likely to visit the places that actively promote health, safety and courtesy through mask wearing during a pandemic.

@AntiMaskersAreTwats

Good for Waterstones. I hope most shops follow as I shall only shop in those that strongly encourage mask wearing.

They can strongly encourage all they like, but they can't make people.