Push for masks to be reintroduced

[GerardusMercator]

Over the last few days I've noticed a big push in media to get masks back on the agenda. A brief foray into twitter and flick through a few Covid threads here, and I've seen all the old pandemic era versions of 'it's no hardship to mask'/ your selfish if you don't want to mask etc start to creep back in.

How many of you are-

1. Still masking now
2. Will mask if it becomes guidance
3. Will mask if it becomes law
4. Will not mask again under any circumstances

I really struggled with masks and don't believe they make a great deal of difference (covid theatre) so would be somewhere between a 3 and 4.

3 and 4
Just got rid of masks at work (care home)

Both Covid and Ebola are viruses. One is many times more deadly than the other.

If you truely believed that masks work, you would have no qualms about wearing your blue surgical mask in an Ebola lab. But we all know that you wouldn't dare.

By the way, people have sneezed in my face with flu. Not pleasant, granted but we all live on a planet packed with 8 billion people and countless trillions of microbial lifeforms, so I am not going to get all hung up about a relatively mild respiratory virus. Covid, I mean.

Should have put between.

Masks being mandated again would make our daily lives easier. And we are going through a really tough time so I would like it. We don’t know the virus that caused her brain injury. Possibly covid. But the main threat it that when flu/covid/RV illnesses go up that the hospitals/ambulances become overwhelmed so that they can’t help my daughter when her brain injury means she has incidents like when she stops breathing. Obviously her getting an illness would not be great as it could increase complications and also delay her operations. Of course, we are lucky enough that close family test when them come to see us. And we wear masks in shops etc.

However, as you can see on this thread, it would be nonsensical as there are so many that are getting so upset about it. It wouldn’t work. Obviously if you have an airborne virus, catching it in a mask and diluting the volume of virus particles is a good idea. But you can’t argue with stupid.

Obviously if you have an airborne virus, catching it in a mask and diluting the volume of virus particles is a good idea.

It depends what you're talking about. Medical grade, yes that's likely. Cloth masks not so much. But the cost/benefit of wearing medical grade masks for long periods of time just doesn't stack up for many people.

Please, please don't use the "save the NHS" mantra. We are royally fucked and a few token cloth masks will be as much help as another round of doorstep clap along.

I won’t wear one unless it became illegal not to in certain places but would never insult or publicly harangue someone wearing one. I couldn’t care less what risk assessment someone else has made.

I would be really angry if they start implementing any restrictions (mask wearing or otherwise) in schools. Children have born the brunt of a lot of this shitshow over the last few years and are not generally vulnerable to covid.

The biggest problem in the NHS is staff retention and also the fact that elderly patients cannot be released until they have a care package, which is thin on the ground.

Both have nowt to do with masks. So "save the NHS" can do one as a reason to force masking.

As I've said before though, if you want to do it please crack on. Just leave me alone

Has anyone noticed how many shops are removing their plastic screens too? Viruses of all types don’t go away so if these barriers actually worked or had any significant effect, they would surely be left in place too.

This is from the author that worked with Matt Hancock his Pandemic Diaries so actually from the horses mouth:

“Hancock, Whitty and Johnson knew full well that non-medical face masks do very little to prevent transmission of the virus. People were made to wear them anyway because Dominic Cummings was fixated with them; because Nicola Sturgeon liked them; and above all because they were symbolic of the public health emergency.
As early as 3 February 2020 – long before anyone outside the Department of Health was taking the prospect of a pandemic seriously – ministers were told the masks make no significant difference. In April 2020, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) reiterated this advice. At the end of that month, the Sage committee said much the same thing, telling ministers that it would be unreasonable to claim a large benefit. An ‘obsessed’ Cummings was the driving force behind mandating mask-wearing in all healthcare settings – and then in retail and hospitality. On 28 June he messaged Hancock to complain that the government was being insufficiently ‘aggressive’ on the issue and demanding that they be compulsory in shops and for restaurant staff.
In a private exchange with Hancock, Whitty said he could see ‘no scientific or medical reason not to’ make them compulsory. He described the evidence in favour of mask-wearing as ‘moderate’ in general but ‘positive in enclosed spaces where distancing is difficult’. Hancock’s response? ‘I said I could see no reason not to use the power of the state to enforce it and that the importance of masks should be in all our messaging.’ That summer, the Treasury was instructed to change a planned advertising campaign (designed to get punters back into pubs) to ensure all models featured were masked up.”

Says it all really.

This is rage inducing- 'follow the science' indeed 😡

Nope! No medical evidence to say they work as far as I understand it's about reassuring people. and terrible for deaf or hard of hearing folks. However the plastic shields in all our local shops are still up and o think that's a good thing

We shouldn't be 'protecting the NHS they should be protecting us!'

Keep swallowing that nonsense snd we go down the rabbit hole of actually accepting awful health care

Just the sort of public health messaging we need in 2023.

3-4

I am exempt - I find wearing one for any length of time to be incredibly difficult to manage on a sensory/panic situation because of my autism. I can just about manage to wear one for the length of time taken to visit a service user when required at work, but couldn't wear one to sit in work and wear, or juggle the sensory overload of having to go somewhere busy plus a mask etc.

I have an agreement at work that if they bring them back in in the offices - I'll just WFH, and they know that I really do push myself to the limit to wear one seeing clients.

The hatred and abuse directed towards those who didn't wear one last time and wore the lanyards of itchy shame was horrendous - I'll end up back like I did and not go out beyond the absolute essentials again and have a miserable existence again if they come back in.

2

1. Didn't work in China, didn't make any difference here in Scotland when NS insisted they stayed long after England got rid.

Exactly. And just in case you’re not angry enough…

if you read the diaries, a huge amount of ‘health’ decisions in England were made on what Nicola Sturgeon was doing, not whether they were of any benefit to the population.

“Right from the start, Downing Street was terrified that the virus might somehow accelerate the break-up of the Union. As early as 12 March 2020, Hancock made the effort to fly up north to talk to Scottish health ministers in person, observing that Nicola Sturgeon ‘would not be able to resist’ exploiting the crisis to push for Scottish independence.
Throughout the pandemic, far-reaching policy decisions, especially international travel restrictions and the timing of lockdowns, were distorted by what Sturgeon was doing or what No. 10 feared she might do. Hancock describes her move to mandate mask-wearing in secondary schools in late August 2020 as ‘one of her most egregious attempts at one-upmanship to date’, admitting the UK government was left ‘scrabbling around to formulate a response’. The UK government’s own guidance on face coverings had specifically excluded schools. Faced with an unpleasant choice between wheeling out the chief medical or scientific officer to say that the Scots were wrong or performing a U-turn, Downing Street chose the latter. That, rather than any medical reason, is why millions of schoolchildren were forced to spend months with grubby bits of material stuck to their faces.“

Throughout the pandemic, far-reaching policy decisions, especially international travel restrictions and the timing of lockdowns, were distorted by what Sturgeon was doing or what No. 10 feared she might do

It was so, so obvious that the conduct of the pandemic in the UK was politically driven; Sturgeon putting restrictions in place was designed to say to the Scots 'See how much safer you would be with me in charge?' Drakeford, Sturgeon and Johnson were all circling each other, trying to second guess what the others would do.

Well, it was politically driven in most places. Couldn't not be in a democracy, and even in as authoritarian a state as China the government still isn't totally exempt from public opinion and behaviour. The decision making process about what approach to take inherently requires choosing which groups get prioritised and which get thrown under the bus, so there isn't a way that could've happened that wasn't political. But obviously in the UK, with the matter being dealt with via health which is devolved, we've had one of the neater examples of this process.

Sorry seem this a few times on mumsnet and on face book sites!!

I had flu so wore a mask! I had flu but managed to get to the local shop/text you/update my face book!!! Went so worn!! Yes you dad!

If you have ever had flu and most of us only have it once or maybe twice in our lives you are literally comatosed for a week or more.

Anything else is a bloody cold!

Question - if masks work, how come the heavily mask mandated China is in such a mess now? Surely the masks would have saved them? No?!

Exactly! This always gets ignored in these threads though 🤣

Doesn’t follow the ‘masks make me safer and better’ narrative does it?

As one autistic woman to another, I completely understand and sympathise.

The trouble with the exemption system is that it was utterly abused which led to widespread scepticism. Just look at those on this thread who have openly said they’ll lie about having exemptions.

People’s dishonesty has caused others to doubt the authenticity of those who claim a genuine exemption.

Its shit but the pandemic really did show just how selfish many people are, unfortunately.

Am sure there's a song about that 🎶we dont talk about that part no, no..... 🎶