Annoyed that masks can be a way that people are judged

[Twattergy]

I went to a hairdresser today. All staff wearing masks. I asked on entry ' do you require me to wear a mask?' and receptionist said 'no we can't force you to, it's up to you'. So I didn't put one on. I had one with me, but now it isn't mandatory, I made my choice based on fact that I have been tripled jabbed and recovered from covid 2 weeks ago. I kept having the urge to tell the staff 'I have been tripled jabbed and recently recovered from covid which is the main reason I'm not wearing a mask'..but I thought why should I have to justify this? Any of the masked people in there could be unvaccinated, or even knowingly have symptoms of Covid, but because they are wearing a mask it is assumed they are doing 'the right thing'. And me in no mask, I think many people would assume I'm being anti social, when in fact I have been highly responsible with vaccination. I'm annoyed at the huge potential for judgements around mask wearing now that it isn't mandatory. (I would wear a mask where is is mandatory eg London transport or health care settings BTW I'm not a radical anti masker). Ifnyou were sat next to me in the hairdresser would you judge me? Would you want me to tell you I was fully vaxxed and recently recovered?

YESSSSSSS!

Thank you.

I'm bored at the moment - can you tell? Sorry for disrupting the thread, anyone who's still resilient enough to be around!

It's just another mask thread, I don't think it matters so much I'd it gets derailed for a few posts…

If you're on the mobile site, there should be little buttons under the input box that'll help with some of these things.

*if it

@ allClumpingBambooIsALie

It's just another mask thread, I don't think it matters so much I'd it gets derailed for a few posts…

Get me, with my techie know-how!

Thanks. :)

I think I'd managed this stuff once in the past, but it doesn't stick...

@Metacat

Seatbelts and drink-driving are mandated. Masks aren't any more.

Which ultimately is the bottom line and something we agree on. (That they are no longer mandatory, rather than agreeing that they should or shouldn’t be).

@TheKeatingFive

Seatbelts and drink-driving are mandated. Masks aren't any more

The cost benefit analysis for seat belts and drink driving is very clear. I don't think that's true for masks at all. That's my position.

At an individual level, I don't have a big issue with wearing masks, but that's not universally true and the impact on the deaf community, for example, is simply being swept under the carpet.

If it could be demonstrated scientifically that masks make a significant difference to transmission then that would be something, but analysis of places with masks mandates versus not don't appear to indicate this at all. So it's not comparable to road safety measures in my eyes, where the benefit is clearly and demonstrably much more significant than the costs.

Also, seatbelts and drink-driving laws are meant to be indefinite. I guess a future government could always decide to roll them back, but there is nobody saying “well road accidents are low this year so you can drive as dunk as you like.”

Most(?) people don’t think masks should be permanent, though. If you say “so you want masks forever?” you’ll get told no, don’t be silly, nobody wants THAT! So seatbelts and drink driving laws seem like an odd analogy to use in that sense.

(For myself: I don’t plan to wear masks forever, and I think “once everyone who can be triple jabbed has been and masks aren’t legally mandated any more” is a reasonable point to stop, on the grounds that:

• I am unconvinced they do slow community transmission more than fractionally in real world usage outside of lockdowns (I know, I know, “here’s this paper on self-reported mask use saying they do!” but just to take one rather large quasi-experiment close to home, England dropped mask laws for six months while Scotland and Wales kept them, and you can see 0 evidence of it affecting transmission levels);

• but even if they did, what would this achieve for a virus that most people are going to be exposed to anyway, unless they take very strong measures to protect themselves? You would delay infections rather than avoiding them; the benefit of this was clear while vaccines were being rolled out, but after?;

• For some of us, they are more than a minor trivial tiny easy inconvenience. I don’t qualify as exempt, and so I wear one where I’m obliged to, but I fall into the bigger category of ‘can wear masks but with difficulty’ and tbh after 18+ months of slogging through with this I’m getting a bit fed up of being told how very very easy it is for anyone who isn’t utterly selfish;

• most of the masks used are going to have very little effect against omicron anyway - you are kidding yourself if you think a cloth mask with big gaps at the sides is saving the lives of others, sorry - so all they’re doing is making people feel safer without actually helping them BE safer in a way that more effective masks would, while remaining a divisive, politicised piece of security theatre that’s reinforcing the antisocial tendency to see others as vectors of transmission rather than as other humans in society.

I don’t care if you want to wear a mask forever though, knock yourself out. But if you really care about reducing transmission you could at least wear an FFP2, and if you really wanted people to believe you don’t intend them to stay forever, you could avoid using things like seatbelts and drink driving laws as analogies.

@GoldenOmber brilliant post, explaining it so well in a way I've not been able to . Thank you! 👏

Would be all in favour of the government providing high quality masks + fit testing services (even the online ones would do) to people who are vulnerable and would like to wear them, though. Feels like at some point in mid 2020 everyone got so used to shouting “masks don’t protect YOU they protect OTHERS!” that we’ve forgotten there are, actually, masks that protect the wearer. They’re just harder to get and require a bit more attention to make sure they fit right.

(I don’t think widespread FFP2 use would do much for community transmission either - should clarify that. Or we’d have seen it do something for the European countries that mandated FFP2 vs the ones that didn’t, for omicron. But they ARE more effective at protecting the person who’s wearing them, in the specific situation in which they’re wearing them.)

@GoldenOmber

(I don’t think widespread FFP2 use would do much for community transmission either - should clarify that. Or we’d have seen it do something for the European countries that mandated FFP2 vs the ones that didn’t, for omicron. But they ARE more effective at protecting the person who’s wearing them, in the specific situation in which they’re wearing them.)

Well they have lower death rates than us.

You might not think they help reduce transmission but the experts say otherwise.

Well they have lower death rates than us.

For Omicron? No they don’t.

You might not think they help reduce transmission but the experts say otherwise.

I know you think ‘the experts’ are one group where everyone agrees, but this is not the case.

Oh I really must find my links. I had them the other day.

Nevermind. It's not hard to find both the data re other countries and the expert information out there.

What I'm not sure of if is whether Germany, Austria, and others were doing what the UK was doing - excluding reinfection deaths from official figures. (We still only include if more than 90 days after 1st test, so reinfectiond within 90 days not counted).

@Tealightsandd

Oh I really must find my links. I had them the other day.

Nevermind. It's not hard to find both the data re other countries and the expert information out there.

You can check Our World In Data? Start with comparing UK (no mandated FFP2s, current death rate 3.24 per million) with Italy (mandated FFP2s, current death rate 6.22 per million).

You will not find a single site where all of The Experts agree and share their expertly wisdom, because again, experts disagree on stuff, especially in complex fast-changing situations.

1. Does Italy include all SARS-COV-2 deaths - including reinfections.

1. That is the cumulative death rate. Italy were hit very badly at the start, in 2020.

1. Look at Germany, Austria, etc.

Also like I said yesterday. It's not a huge bother to most of us - yet can make such a huge difference to the mental health of the more vulnerable.

Given the very vocal concern over these last two years about the importance of good mental health (including the need to have empathy), one might expect people to choose, without needing a mandate, to wear a mask.

@Tealightsandd

1. Does Italy include all SARS-COV-2 deaths - including reinfections.

1. That is the cumulative death rate. Italy were hit very badly at the start, in 2020.

1. Look at Germany, Austria, etc.

I don’t know - are you suggesting they might go even higher?

1. No, it isn’t, it’s the current 7 day average.

1. yes - Germany and Austria currently have lower death rates than us (after having had higher for their big delta wave in late 2021, lower for our big delta wave earlier). But what you said was that countries mandating FFP2 had lower death rates than us. The reality is that some of them currently do, others currently don’t - so it’s hard to see the FFP2 mandates having much of an effect on that particular metric.

@Tealightsandd

Also like I said yesterday. It's not a huge bother to most of us - yet can make such a huge difference to the mental health of the more vulnerable.

Given the very vocal concern over these last two years about the importance of good mental health (including the need to have empathy), one might expect people to choose, without needing a mandate, to wear a mask.

But, and I know you won’t want to hear this, it IS a huge bother to others of us, so.

FFP2s protect the wearer. Anyone vulnerable should be getting a free FFP2 supply from the government with proper fitting advice. Maybe FFp3s too although they can be really uncomfortable and impractical, but at least FFP2. To protect the wearer. Other people wearing crappy cloth masks with big gaping spaces at the side is nowhere near as effective, if it’s even effective at all. Why not suggest stuff that makes people BE safer, rather than just feel safer?

And people really don’t all know that different masks are effective in different ways. I ended up buying a big stack of FFP2s for my elderly relative with ongoing bronchial issues when she got a long-distance train at the height of the omicron wave, because she genuinely did not know that her Etsy patterned mask would not do much to protect her, and that even if only 20% of that train was unmasked, chances were very high she’d been exposed to omicron anyway.

People have had terrible advice on masks, terrible resources on masks, and most people don’t care. This is poor.

Obviously it should be FFP2s (which are what I use). For anyone buying from abroad, that is the UK equivalent to N95.

@Flaxmeadow

I think some people don't like to see others wearing masks because it reminds them that we are still in a pandemic. Minimising the situation is a coping mechanism. In their minds if there are no reminders, masks, lockdown, vaccine etc, then the virus does not exist or 'its only mild' 'just a cold' etc

Yes this is my opinion too.

I don't blame people for saying I'm done with covid etc but it's still here and doesn't seem to be going away yet!

Germany and Austria, amongst others, have consistently had lower death rates than the UK (and that's with us not including reinfection deaths until very very recently - and still only if more than 90 days).

It really isn't a bother for most of us to wear a mask. Only a minority are genuinely unable to wear them.

It's like a Japanese-American doctor said the other day. Many Asian countries have worn masks for years with no problems. (She suspects racism is one reason for anti masking - whether she's right, I don't know).

It really isn't a bother for most of us to wear a mask. Only a minority are genuinely unable to wear them.

You can keep repeating ‘it really isn’t a bother’, but people for whom it IS a bother aren’t suddenly going to cast aside all our own experiences just because they don’t align with yours, I’m afraid. Or because you tell them they’re racist.

That's a good point @Cocogreen and @Flaxmeadow

It's the equivalent to fingers in ears, trying to wish/pretend it all away.

Silly really. Pandemic or not, it would be no bad thing if we were to adopt the more civic minded and sensible attitude that Japan and other countries have.

Courtesy to others, and just good general basic infection control.

@GoldenOmber, I honestly think I've addressed most of the claims above, including the limitations of justifications like ('scuse the paraphrasing!) "research paper v. my own evidence" and the "big gaps". The links I posted explain "what this would achieve" in some detail, also referencing both these concerns, I think, and from the perspective of experts who've probably spent more collected time on this stuff than our combined time in school. :)

Similarly, I've been really careful to make it clear that I recognise not everyone can be expected to wear masks. If that's not come across, I'm sorry, as it must be frustrating to think it's not recognised, and extremely tough for people in your position. It's genuinely good of you to do it when you can.

The main newer argument I can see is, like the others, still a rather familiar one to me: the strawman suggesting I want masks forever. I tried to anticipate this in a range of phrases in earlier posts eg. "for now", "high numbers" etc., as I did feel it was only a matter of time before it came at me! The claim that my ref. to seatbelts is indisputable evidence of this desire is a new one, though - I didn't see that coming, as analogies aren't direct equivalencies & my argument has always been, quite simply, that we should respond to the best available evidence. I don't know of any evidence favouring our wearing masks in certain contexts unhappily-ever-after, as the expectation seems to be that Covid will become endemic, presenting considerably less risk over time. Not being a wannabe superhero, I, along with, I'm fairly sure, the rest of the country, sincerely hope this is the case.

If we did end up seeing a cultural (emphatically NOT a mandated) shift in which masks become normalised as a courtesy when one's ill / on public transport etc., though, while this would be upsetting in a way - end of an era etc. - I do also think I could adjust to it if the scientific grounds for it were clear; I understand that some countries have favoured this approach for years. However, you make me realise that something like that could make things very hard for people in your position.

The other newer argument is re: their impact on human interaction. This I can definitely understand to a degree, but, again, when presented as scaremongering all-or-nothing preventing us from seeing "other humans in society" is less convincing to me. One counter-argument would be that little has damaged my own faith in society more than the more extreme attitudes to wearing masks by SOME people without your difficulties in recent years: just here on MN, there are still those who are more than happy to tell the recently bereaved that they're virtue-signalling gits and the CEV that they should F-off and stay at home. I find this intensely distressing. Another counter-argument would be that masks are unlikely to have this dehumanising effect when worn in limited contexts - again, see certain Asian countries. The one area I really think you have a point, though, is very little ones whose main experiences of strangers are as half-faces. This worries me, and I don't have an answer for how to balance this with protecting the vulnerable except to reiiterate - why would anyone think someone wants masks "forever", unless to score an easy rhetorical point?

On a final note, I do find it interesting that the strongest language used about masks - permanent / utterly selfish / antisocial etc. - sometimes does seem to come rather more from those who are, for whatever reason, strongly averse to wearing them than those who are living in permanent fear of severe illness. I can totally understand it when you're unable to wear a mask easily yourself, but it's seems to be a pattern beyond this. But that may also be my own biases.

NB. I only ever wear an FFP2. Strongly recommend them as airier and comfier than cloth ones, but, again, am conscious that's far from the same for everyone.

Thanks for engaging. I don't get much chance to really debate stuff at the mo., & really enjoy thinking things through & thrashing them out! Sad, but true!

I wish you all the best.