Why won’t so many Brits wear a mask

[IloveConkers]

I live in mainland Spain where I haven’t seen a single person without a mask in a supermarket since March 2020. I hear it’s the same in Germany and Italy. What is it about so many British people that makes them not do it when it’s clearly safer. I returned to the UK for a visit and found it horrifying. I was even looked at with disdain for wearing one! I just don’t get it!

Germany wear good quality face masks have you seen how many cases they have hAd today ?
I wear one but I am not totally convinced they work as well as some think

@HesterShaw1

Are you still saying if only Brits had done The Rules better Covid would have gone away?

The reason the health service is "on its knees", to use an overused phrase, is not because people haven't done Covid properly.

The health service would still be completely shit if Covid hadn't come along. Hospitals were full anyway. Social care has been gutted, there are too many old/unhealthy people in the country for the amount of care available. This happened before Covid.

Oh no, I agree. But had the government handled it better and, yes, people followed what guidance we did have properly, the health services would be less overwhelmed than they have been for the last ~2 years.

No doubt that health and social care were creaking to an inevitable, underfunded, privatisation shaped death anyway. But what little was left has been absolutely shafted by the unnecessarily high covid rated here, which could have been prevented

@Silverswirl

Because they are fucking horrible to breathe through and actually unless you wear the right ones do little. Also covid is a mild virus or cold for the vast majority HTH

It may be mild for you and me but if I pass it on to my terminally ill mum with no immune system, I'm her main carer, it will probably kill her. So wear a fucking mask. HTH

@AnkleDeep

Mostly because they are a bit thick and haven't read the research.

Or just plain selfish, of course.

Perhaps. Or maybe they see their leaders flouting the rules so think 🤔 🤷 why not.

@Playgrind

Historically, continental Europe is more given to fascism.

Just sayin'

I'd keep a weather eye on yon lass Priti Patel if I were you. She's got 1933 written all over her

@Playgrind

Historically, continental Europe is more given to fascism.

Just sayin'

Twit.

@scarpa we had pretty high compliance though really , you only read about the ones who didn't as opposed to the millions who did

@L0stinCyberspace have you checked put todays infection figures ? Germany almost the sAme who wear masks and a better quality than most of the fabric ones

Personally find the ones that are wearing a mask but not properly to be the most annoying

@Volhhg

I wonder if its because in Spain and Italy they gave out on the spot fines for lockdown breaches during the first lockdown. In Italy people couldn't even go out without a certificate, it was very strict compared to here. They also had to wear masks outside so I guess only having to wear one in a shop seems comparatively easier. The process for fining people for lockdown breaches here in the UK was much more complicated and not as frequent as in Spain and Italy

I think you may have a good point there.

Anyway, I travel for work quite a bit. I've seen plenty of people not wearing masks properly in European countries. Shops seem pretty compliant, but I think a lot of it is a politeness thing rather than a health thing, nobody wants to be the first to go against the rules. And let's be fair, just going by this thread alone, there are plenty that are convinced that masks are the answer to everything.

Also, I have a friend that lives abroad. She came to visit a few weeks ago, and commented how everybody wears masks everywhere where she lives (they don't, I've seen pictures of her with it round her wrist or under her chin), and how shocked she was the the English weren't. But then she came into our house maskless, hugged everybody, shared a meal... She was visiting 5 or 6 other people and no doubt doing the same thing.

Anyway, just been on my works Christmas party. A couple of packed bars, a busy restaurant, barely a mask to be seen. It was fantastic.

YANBU. It’s such a small thing to do to show you have a small bit of respect and consideration for people around you. Particularly in shops where the staff have to be exposed zillions of times a day to everyone’s unmasked germs. Selfishness.

As someone has already pointed out those countries all lived under dictatorships in living history and I wonder too if this has a cultural impact on how a population reacts to how they comply with new laws

And what about those of us who live in countries that have never lived under dictatorships and yet the majority manage to comply with mask laws? You are talking a load of rubbish.

Same op. I’m in Spain too. I was horrified on the tube when I visited London recently. I mean if there was ever an environment with no ventilation!

Because there is no evidence that wearing anything other than a proper surgical mask does anything. Anyone wearing one will be able to feel the air being sucked in from the top and sides and pushed out from the top and sides. I wore a mask until recently to make others feel safer but I'm sick of it now and have become convinced it's all about making us feel scared and therefore it's about compliance. Show me some evidence that they do anything and I'll start wearing one again.

I also live and teach in Spain and all children over age of 5 have been wearing masks 8-9 hours a day in school since the pandemic started (they change to fresh masks half way through the day). In our enormous school we have had only one child’s parents refuse to send her in a mask (they were covid deniers too). The kids are fantastic about wearing them and my 3 year old DS wears one on trains etc without a fuss.

Like the op my mind boggled when visiting the uk this summer and even in the airport people weren’t wearing masks. In Spain we had to even wear masks on the street for many months. A lot of people never stopped wearing them. Perhaps because Spain had it so badly at the start of the pandemic. Or perhaps because wearing a mask isn’t this deeply unpleasant trauma that many Brits make out it is. British exceptionalism or snowflakey? It just seems bonkers to the rest of us.

Sheer bloody-mindedness.

With the exception of those who genuinely can't, it's pretty much a mix of "damn government cant tell me what to do", "it doesn't work, prove me wrong" and "this is stupid, life must go on and wearing a mask is a barrier to that. Somehow. It just is ok I don't need to justify myself to you, dementor. You want us all locked in cages in government facilities for the next 30 years YOU'RE LOVING THIS"

Lots of us ‘Brits’ live in parts of the UK where the mask rules were never lifted in July: NI, Scotland, Wales.

As you can see from the case rates, this has made a huge change to our case rates compared to England, and is great evidence at how well they work at preventing community spread. Somehow. Um.

as someone who religiously wore a mask during the first lockdown, i just can't be arsed anymore.

Then: brand new unknown virus, no vaccine, no effective treatments, no evidence masks helped so we’re dismissed by government at first but recognition of their psychological value changed their minds. Useful to promote compliance with other measures.

Now: endemic virus with many variants to cone (as with all coronaviruses), effective vaccines, reasonably effective treatments, still no evidence masks work, in fact real-world evidence tends to show the opposite.
Some may still find them psychologically comforting.

I believe that most people consider what is best quite carefully.

@Egghead68

The figure’s difficult to see but our Covid rates are in the middle and Spain’s are near the bottom

I'm so tired of all this shite, all this Britain is the WORST, we're all so selfish, every other country is so much better or more compliant.

Comparing apples with oranges in mosts cases. Most of Europe charge for LFT tests - in Spain it's around 5 euros a test. Don't you think that might just have a slight impact on how many people are testing and picking up asymptomatic cases?

Spain also locked children into their houses for 7 weeks in 2020 which is inhumane.

@HesterShaw1

Are you still saying if only Brits had done The Rules better Covid would have gone away?

The reason the health service is "on its knees", to use an overused phrase, is not because people haven't done Covid properly.

The health service would still be completely shit if Covid hadn't come along. Hospitals were full anyway. Social care has been gutted, there are too many old/unhealthy people in the country for the amount of care available. This happened before Covid.

Well aren't you a little ray of sunshine. I think years of Tory cuts to the NHS and social care are more to blame. And what do you suggest we do with these "too many old/unhealthy people"?

@CatsArePeople

as someone who religiously wore a mask during the first lockdown, i just can't be arsed anymore.

It seems to be true....I work with the public, most are unmasked and don't even apologise for I The older/unhealthy/ill are all in masks though

Because 50% of the population think they know better than world leading experts. I don’t even mean that sarcastically.

I think it's very similar to the way things are in the United States tbh. People who admire, vote and share (some) opinions with the likes of Johnson, Patel, Farage etc believe that no one has the right to tell them what to do, and that wearing a mask is restricting their entitlement to 'freedom' , and that they don't work and that they know more than experts and scientists anyway etc etc etc.

Also people who don't wear masks ime are frequently quite selfish and dismissive of those who might be vulnerable to covid due to age, disability or whatever. It's a great, or depressing depending on your point of view, example of a 'me, me, me society' in that no one else matters other than themselves so that the easy and simple and cheap act of wearing a mask has become an important political point to them. However bizarrely stupid in the throes of a constantly changing pandemic that is.

@HardbackWriter

I love the way these threads always go:

'it's because English people think they're SO SPECIAL.'.
'yeah, that's right, there's nothing special about English people'
'that's right, they're the worst people who have ever existed and unlike every other nation on earth who are selfless'

and no one ever seems to spot the irony.

I also like all the people who pat themselves on the back for being Scottish or Welsh.

This!

Every one is back to wearing a mask here!

Horrifying you say OP? We have only just been told to go back to wearing them..