Thoughts on using facemasks again....as numbers rise

[Kcc73]

So....numbers of covid (along side other cold/flu viruses) and rising quickly.
I have had cold/sore throat/feeling fatigue - but not covid - after 7 days still can't shake it off. I am not that 'ill' and just getting on with what I have to do BUT my health generally not great and a) the thought of getting covid /or/and flu , plus all these more minor colds , and b) probably worse - the thought of my hubby or teens getting covid/flu (and they probably less careful/mindful re washing hands etc) and the impact of that alone! is beginning to get me in a spin (I suffer with chronic condition that doesn't make me cev but I have high fatigue and pains at best of times).

Yes, I do suffer with anxiety (but have reasons to justify) but as it becoming more evident that we heading into another wave, what is reasonable to do , looking at the measures we used in past - when it was kind of mandatory - that can do now?? I want , and have started wearing face mask in supermarkets . I want to ask my teens to wear facemask on public transport but because no one else, well few, are doing this, feel I can't impose this and don't want to pass on anxieties to them.

BUT I know as 'mum', that if (when) family get sick, it will fall to me to a lot more , which don't get me wrong, I do want and feel should do, - but my stance is let's try and do whatever we can to reduce likelihood or getting sick - or preparing for the worst. I am NOT going to be stopping life; but as we head into winter again I am getting worried. Hubby away for weekend with friends and now it's back to thinking 'oh expect he will bring back covid '.

So wish really there were some more mandatory mitigations tbh. I know a lot will shout me down about this. I don't think we should lockdown before anyone thinks then. Just we are a culture of 'followers' and when fold started wearing masks, it made others accept wearing ok, and when it no longer mandatory, if still wearing one you felt odd! Wondered if others starting to wear masks again or doing anything else? (apart from get vaccinated which for most won't be for a while; my appointment is late Oct as I have another health condition).

Long woffly message. Sorry!

Kc

Us as a family of 3 we have never worn masks or been vaccinated! If we are poorly we stay home and do not go out and spread it about! No I am not a crazy anti covid nutter before you all come at me! I am sure we will get covid at some point but we havent yet! Practically everyone I know was masked and had the jab some are now I think on their 4th ones coming up and they have all had covid multiple times? I cant make any sense of it? 😕

You assumed I presented a question of evidence for some reason.

What conspiracy theory?

What were those people falling over from and why was it said to be from COVID on all our media?

I'm back to always wearing FFP2 or 3 masks on public transport and in busy places. I may get covid from my kids anyway, or friends or family, but maybe I won't get it quite as many times as I would if I didn't bother with masks on buses and in shops. Getting it as few times as possible counts as a win here.

Malaria has never gone away, but that doesn't mean people don't bother with trying to avoid catching it any more. TB has never gone away - likewise. All sorts of diseases are here to stay. Whether we keep trying to avoid catching them just depends on how much we don't want to experience the illness.

Personally I want to keep my chances of repeatedly catching covid low - it may just be a bit of a cold for lots of people, but it's much more than that for a significant minority, including people who were previously young, fit and healthy. It's not just a respiratory disease, it's vascular. Zero stars, would not recommend.

FFP2/3 masks can also be left to air at home for a few days and re-used safely unless worn for many hours, which reduces the cost a bit.

There might be a properly transmission-blocking nasal vaccine in a year or so, and by then I'd quite like to have hardly ever had covid, rather than to have had it several times.

I'm exempt and like many others had to put up with horrendous abuse when masks were mandatory. Some of the things said on here about those unable to wear masks were simply disgusting. The idea of returning to a time when I would be shouted at and threatened in shops and on the bus actually scares the shit out of me.

If you want to wear a mask and you're able, wear one. But - even if they become mandatory again - please don't judge others who can't.

We appear to have a time traveller joining us from June 2020

For many of us, it's not anxiety - it's having a family member who is critically vulnerable.

The whole point of public health measures it to protect the public - it doesn't work if it's individual choice.

I'm exempt due to a neurological condition and the abuse I got on here was absolutely vile. Death was wished on my loved ones so I would 'know how it felt'. I was called all manner of filthy, selfish, antivaxx (I've had six!), murdering 'cunt'. I was told my condition was made up and also that I was lying about how it affected me. I was told I should never leave the house, even to go to hospital appointments. It was absolutely disgusting.

I'm so relieved that the tide has turned and the attitudes on this thread are so different (in the main).

Which leaves the critically vulnerable still shielding.

Life's really shit for the "less grievable" disabled

I'm what you might call the "less grievable" disabled. Critically vulnerable, shielded when shielding was a thing. Severely immunocompromised.

Even if I were able to wear a mask, it still wouldn't prevent me from understanding why some people can't.

I also know that covid is going nowhere, and people need to get on with their lives - it's up to me to judge whether or not a situation is 'dangerous' or not (although I've had covid seven times so feel fairly reassured at this point).

Wearing basic masks does statistically make a difference, but it’s not a panacea and has in way been destructive because it’s enabled this zero sum view that “masks don’t work”. Proper FFP2 masks DO work. They protect YOU.

The difficulty is that mask wearing as people actually practice it has demonstrably failed to work against Omicron variants in the UK. Earlier on, with less transmissible variants, there's evidence that it was worth using even the crappier masks, but that's been and gone. Hence England fared no worse than Scotland in early 2022 when the latter kept mask rules much longer.

Proper FFP2 masks well fitted, yes, but the problem that OP and those who continue to want them on a population level have is that this isn't how people wear them. It wasn't even how people wore them before the massive erosion in trust that Partygate led to, and it certainly isn't going to be now.

Mandatory mitigations as OP wants are a terrible idea, because most of them demonstrably don't work and also can't be enforced. It's not a good idea to have laws that the state has no chance of getting people to comply with.

Or someone who actually understands science as opposed to the dimly lit posters who don't.

I am sure you will have seen in the news that ambulance wait times are up, A&E wait times are higher than ever, and people awaiting orthapedics surgeries are facing 2+ year waits. Adding more and avoidable covid on top seems crazy.

hospital admissions for covid up 48% according to the HSJ today.

Not doing the straightforward NPI measures will in practice mean more infections, hospitalisations and deaths.

Figures (for England) are updated only weekly now, and it's just been released

Positive tests up 42% (whereas numbers of tests carried out down 12%, so that's a real and substantial rise)

Hospital admissions up nearly 48%

This is concerning

I think we need to see masks back in all clinical settings and on public transport

Plus investment in air filtration systems

And Evusheld for the critically vulnerable

Oh look, another one.

Incidentally those who don't like masks or can't wear them for whatever reason aren't 'dimly lit'. We 'understand science' about as well as any random poster on Mumsnet (another very 2020 look - claiming to be an armchair virologist while everyone else is just a bit thick).

Covid is nearly three years old, it's still going nowhere, life must go on. Masks (and other 'mitigations' of the type OP is hinting at) affect businesses and therefore jobs at a time when we're dealing with the worst cost of living crisis in decades. People losing their jobs because the sector they work in can't operate as normal is going to cause far worse health issues in the current climate than covid would.

Aw this made me feel all nostalgic. I feel like we lost sight of calling each other selfish in the madness of calling each other disrespectful. It's heart warming to see it back again.

It can be difficult for people to get their heads round the fact that there is no reality on offer where the would population comply with mask laws and do it properly. It is not one of the options we are choosing from now.

Relatedly, mask rules are not a 'straightforward' measure in the slightest. People who think that are generally those who either won't experience the downsides themselves or won't be lumbered with trying to enforce it.

Oh, listen to the knowledgeable scientists - never mind the fact that it is a new virus and they obviously didn't know their arse from their elbow and it bloody well showed

Everybody must wear masks, everybody must have the vaccine, everybody must .... well, the stats for countries with much higher compliance rates do not show the trends required to make it credible.

@Croque which countries/stats? Thanks

Isn't it lovely? For the ultimate retro treat I hope the usual faces to pop up to tell us how nightclubs will never reopen/to expect 5000 deaths a day by Christmas/that there'll be a full lockdown before the end of next week and so on, just as they did this time last year.

For all their talk of 'following the science' and how everyone else was stupid/selfish, thankfully they were wrong. As most people who wanged on about 'the science' were. Perhaps that's why we don't see them here now - perhaps they feel a little silly, or at least realise the worry their hyperbole caused.

I'm not talking to your son though, I'm talking to you. DD is a maths teacher, doesn't mean I know all there is to know about maths.

Not being able to wear a mask, or having empathy with people who stand to lose their jobs during a cost of living crisis should mitigations return, doesn't make a person 'thick'.

Calling people thick, dimly lit and ill informed (I'm severely immunosuppressed - when it comes to covid and how best to avoid it, I'm anything but ill informed) says far more about you than anyone else.

We all know someone who's died over the past two years.

But things are not the same now as they were two years ago. Or a year ago. Or even six months ago, with the advent of an Omicron-specific vaccine.

Mitigations cannot go on indefinitely. People cannot be in fear of losing their jobs indefinitely. Poverty is a far bigger killer in this country than covid ever was, even before the current situation.

And generally people only get their posts deleted if they personally attack other posters - I'd say calling people thick, dim and so on multiple times counts as just that.

It's up to the individual if they want to, but enforced Covid mask theatre? No.

I'm more concerned about this recession and fuel poverty and about how much of our money Rishi spunked on Covid. I say this with a stinker of a cold right now, but I'm done with facemasks.