Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
President Trump and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, are continuing to spar over the government’s response to the coronavirus... One of the points of contention is the seriousness of the disease caused by the virus, which has been spreading across the country at its fastest pace yet. Mr. Trump has argued that it is mostly harmless
Well if someone who hasnt yet started GCSE maths (or equivalent) came up with such a model it would suggest a healthy interest in probability and statistics. If they have done any maths at that level and still come up with that then they are to be ignored.
Those who read my header six weeks would know already that centralised "Command and Control" were back in a big way.
As time passes it would appear Covid-19 is a handy invisibility cloak for a number of projects that might otherwise have caused consternation.
Smells like a Cummings plan to me. Bet Big Data will feature in the plans.
The funny thing about Big Data is that in one of the few times and domains where it could help the people of this country, by tracking and tracing infection, this government has squarely fucked up. The PHE data is useful, the Teir 2 largely useless.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
Very strange. As you say, it makes you question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
I've never been a fan of these songs so wouldn't be bothered personally.
"BBC Music magazine columnist calls for 'crudely jingoistic' songs Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory to be scrapped from Last Night of the Proms because they are 'insensitive' in wake of BLM movement"
I've been calling for this for years. Nothing to do with BLM.
Possibly the least surprising revelation ever.
This paragraph from Richard Morrison sums up the Wokeists' contempt for ordinary people. Not only are they not regular Prom-goers like the great (?) man, they dare to experience feelings of patriotism that are not 'ironic':
'I look around me - particularly at the people sitting in the posh seats whom I've never seen at any other Proms - and realise that I can detect absolutely no sign of irony as they roar out these crudely jingoistic texts. On the contrary, they seem to mean every single word...'
Get stuffed, Richard, there's a good fellow.
My brother has 12 of those “posh seats”. He sells them for the Last Night - £15k. You’d be daft not to
There's always been folk with more money than sense. It sounds as if your family know a fair few of them.
I've never been a fan of these songs so wouldn't be bothered personally.
"BBC Music magazine columnist calls for 'crudely jingoistic' songs Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory to be scrapped from Last Night of the Proms because they are 'insensitive' in wake of BLM movement"
I've been calling for this for years. Nothing to do with BLM.
Possibly the least surprising revelation ever.
This paragraph from Richard Morrison sums up the Wokeists' contempt for ordinary people. Not only are they not regular Prom-goers like the great (?) man, they dare to experience feelings of patriotism that are not 'ironic':
'I look around me - particularly at the people sitting in the posh seats whom I've never seen at any other Proms - and realise that I can detect absolutely no sign of irony as they roar out these crudely jingoistic texts. On the contrary, they seem to mean every single word...'
Get stuffed, Richard, there's a good fellow.
My brother has 12 of those “posh seats”. He sells them for the Last Night - £15k. You’d be daft not to
President Trump and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, are continuing to spar over the government’s response to the coronavirus... One of the points of contention is the seriousness of the disease caused by the virus, which has been spreading across the country at its fastest pace yet. Mr. Trump has argued that it is mostly harmless
The modern US presidential election system has existed since 1992. Before that was usually landslides; not hard to pick the winner, and easy to fit a model on 100 years of data when N is 21. Specifically on the model, the early nomination contests are usually very correlated with the late ones, but not this time because Biden finished 4th and 5th in IA and NH, so the risk is that early nominations are just correlated with popularity much later in the contest.
I've never been a fan of these songs so wouldn't be bothered personally.
"BBC Music magazine columnist calls for 'crudely jingoistic' songs Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory to be scrapped from Last Night of the Proms because they are 'insensitive' in wake of BLM movement"
I've been calling for this for years. Nothing to do with BLM.
Possibly the least surprising revelation ever.
This paragraph from Richard Morrison sums up the Wokeists' contempt for ordinary people. Not only are they not regular Prom-goers like the great (?) man, they dare to experience feelings of patriotism that are not 'ironic':
'I look around me - particularly at the people sitting in the posh seats whom I've never seen at any other Proms - and realise that I can detect absolutely no sign of irony as they roar out these crudely jingoistic texts. On the contrary, they seem to mean every single word...'
Get stuffed, Richard, there's a good fellow.
My brother has 12 of those “posh seats”. He sells them for the Last Night - £15k. You’d be daft not to
There's always been folk with more money than sense. It sounds as if your family know a fair few of them.
Nah - the Royal Albert Hall sells them.
Most of the people we know are very good at hanging on to their money
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
Very strange. As you say, it begs the question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
I think the boring answer is:
WHO and UK scientists werent in favour as not enough scientific evidence UK politicians wanted to follow science As weight of scientific evidence increased our own scientists and politicians were wedded to their earlier decisions so didnt react quickly enough.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
Very strange. As you say, it makes you question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
Easy. We weren't made to wear them earlier (e.g. as "stay home" became "stay alert") because we have a government of ninnies. Furthermore, Dom didn't push masks because masks are boring and low-tech. But mostly because we have a government of ninnies.
President Trump and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, are continuing to spar over the government’s response to the coronavirus... One of the points of contention is the seriousness of the disease caused by the virus, which has been spreading across the country at its fastest pace yet. Mr. Trump has argued that it is mostly harmless
The modern US presidential election system has existed since 1992. Before that was usually landslides; not hard to pick the winner, and easy to fit a model on 100 years of data when N is 21. Specifically on the model, the early nomination contests are usually very correlated with the late ones, but not this time because Biden finished 4th and 5th in IA and NH, so the risk is that early nominations are just correlated with popularity much later in the contest.
I think his model flawed too in that usually little fundamental happens between Iowa caucus and November election. In this year both pandemic and economic recession have happened.
Very strange. As you say, it begs the question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
When, of course, the truth is that, in the great majority of the country at least, it isn't especially risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask, for the time being anyway. Who knows how much of a difference masks in shops might have made at the outset of this wretched affair, or how much of a difference they might yet make if there's another major flare-up for whatever reason, but right now there's not much of the disease around (and I'd wager that a large fraction of what's left is concentrated in hospitals and elderly care settings, where masks are already mandated anyway.)
Going back to your original point, if a socially distanced shop is so hazardous that everybody needs to wear a mask in order to protect everybody else then, logically, a socially distanced pub or restaurant is also too hazardous without masks - and, therefore, given that wearing a mask whilst eating and drinking is totally impracticable, the pubs and restaurants should all still be shut. Entreating people to go to dine out - to the extent that you craft a range of Treasury handouts to help catering businesses and encourage their clients to go there and spend money - whilst simultaneously forcing all shoppers to wear masks is a complete contradiction in terms.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
The government is now just responding to the demands of business and turned its back on the scientific advice.
However it appears that a big slice of the population are declining the opportunities presented to increase their risk of infection.
Here is a useful graphic on risky activities published in Ireland.
I don't do any of those things. Living on the edge.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
Very strange. As you say, it makes you question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
Easy. We weren't made to wear them earlier (e.g. as "stay home" became "stay alert") because we have a government of ninnies. Furthermore, Dom didn't push masks because masks are boring and low-tech. But mostly because we have a government of ninnies.
So the number of cases would have been lower if we had been wearing masks in shops since March you think? Or is it only because more people are using shops now that they should be worn?
As it stands, vulnerable people who have been shielded for three months can now hug their grandchildren, who have been living with parents, who've been going to shops maskless!
Very strange. As you say, it begs the question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
When, of course, the truth is that, in the great majority of the country at least, it isn't especially risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask, for the time being anyway. Who knows how much of a difference masks in shops might have made at the outset of this wretched affair, or how much of a difference they might yet make if there's another major flare-up for whatever reason, but right now there's not much of the disease around (and I'd wager that a large fraction of what's left is concentrated in hospitals and elderly care settings, where masks are already mandated anyway.)
Going back to your original point, if a socially distanced shop is so hazardous that everybody needs to wear a mask in order to protect everybody else then, logically, a socially distanced pub or restaurant is also too hazardous without masks - and, therefore, given that wearing a mask whilst eating and drinking is totally impracticable, the pubs and restaurants should all still be shut. Entreating people to go to dine out - to the extent that you craft a range of Treasury handouts to help catering businesses and encourage their clients to go there and spend money - whilst simultaneously forcing all shoppers to wear masks is a complete contradiction in terms.
Yes, it makes no sense. If anything, masks should be worn in pubs but not shops, impractical as that may be
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
We all still had to fight our way around the shops in March and April, yet nobody was commanded to wear a mask. Why start now - unless your aim is to frighten people back into staying at home whenever possible?
Very strange. As you say, it begs the question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
When, of course, the truth is that, in the great majority of the country at least, it isn't especially risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask, for the time being anyway. Who knows how much of a difference masks in shops might have made at the outset of this wretched affair, or how much of a difference they might yet make if there's another major flare-up for whatever reason, but right now there's not much of the disease around (and I'd wager that a large fraction of what's left is concentrated in hospitals and elderly care settings, where masks are already mandated anyway.)
Going back to your original point, if a socially distanced shop is so hazardous that everybody needs to wear a mask in order to protect everybody else then, logically, a socially distanced pub or restaurant is also too hazardous without masks - and, therefore, given that wearing a mask whilst eating and drinking is totally impracticable, the pubs and restaurants should all still be shut. Entreating people to go to dine out - to the extent that you craft a range of Treasury handouts to help catering businesses and encourage their clients to go there and spend money - whilst simultaneously forcing all shoppers to wear masks is a complete contradiction in terms.
Yes, it makes no sense. If anything, masks should be worn in pubs but not shops, impractical as that may be
How can you drink in a mask? If we were going to go down the mask route it should have been three months ago. Not now.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
We all still had to fight our way around the shops in March and April, yet nobody was commanded to wear a mask. Why start now - unless your aim is to frighten people back into staying at home whenever possible?
If and when I go out among the great unwashed I will be wearing a mask
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
We all still had to fight our way around the shops in March and April, yet nobody was commanded to wear a mask. Why start now - unless your aim is to frighten people back into staying at home whenever possible?
It would have been sensible then, but there were few available. Now they are plentiful, and we are encouraged to #enjoysummersafely
I note though that people are not wearing them shopping in the ad.
So munch nonsense about masks being written here this evening. In Germany for almost 2 months now you are allowed to sit at a table in a pub or restaurant with no mask. If you move from your table you are supposed to wear a mask.
Shops are risky because you walk past quite a few people, and you have no idea who they are and good luck with tracing the customers. Wearing a mask will welp sinificantly. And remember the idea is not to prevent every single infection, but to reduce the number of people you infect.
Very strange. As you say, it begs the question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
When, of course, the truth is that, in the great majority of the country at least, it isn't especially risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask, for the time being anyway. Who knows how much of a difference masks in shops might have made at the outset of this wretched affair, or how much of a difference they might yet make if there's another major flare-up for whatever reason, but right now there's not much of the disease around (and I'd wager that a large fraction of what's left is concentrated in hospitals and elderly care settings, where masks are already mandated anyway.)
Going back to your original point, if a socially distanced shop is so hazardous that everybody needs to wear a mask in order to protect everybody else then, logically, a socially distanced pub or restaurant is also too hazardous without masks - and, therefore, given that wearing a mask whilst eating and drinking is totally impracticable, the pubs and restaurants should all still be shut. Entreating people to go to dine out - to the extent that you craft a range of Treasury handouts to help catering businesses and encourage their clients to go there and spend money - whilst simultaneously forcing all shoppers to wear masks is a complete contradiction in terms.
Yes, it makes no sense. If anything, masks should be worn in pubs but not shops, impractical as that may be
How can you drink in a mask? If we were going to go down the mask route it should have been three months ago. Not now.
You didn't do something 3 months ago, so you can't possibly do it now. How responsible of you.
Very strange. As you say, it begs the question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
When, of course, the truth is that, in the great majority of the country at least, it isn't especially risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask, for the time being anyway. Who knows how much of a difference masks in shops might have made at the outset of this wretched affair, or how much of a difference they might yet make if there's another major flare-up for whatever reason, but right now there's not much of the disease around (and I'd wager that a large fraction of what's left is concentrated in hospitals and elderly care settings, where masks are already mandated anyway.)
Going back to your original point, if a socially distanced shop is so hazardous that everybody needs to wear a mask in order to protect everybody else then, logically, a socially distanced pub or restaurant is also too hazardous without masks - and, therefore, given that wearing a mask whilst eating and drinking is totally impracticable, the pubs and restaurants should all still be shut. Entreating people to go to dine out - to the extent that you craft a range of Treasury handouts to help catering businesses and encourage their clients to go there and spend money - whilst simultaneously forcing all shoppers to wear masks is a complete contradiction in terms.
Yes, it makes no sense. If anything, masks should be worn in pubs but not shops, impractical as that may be
How can you drink in a mask? If we were going to go down the mask route it should have been three months ago. Not now.
You didn't do something 3 months ago, so you can't possibly do it now. How responsible of you.
Er no, that’s rubbish. Infections were at their height in April - they are a fraction of that now. I can’t be bothered to dig out the mathematical evidence but it’s widely available. If we were going to have a mask policy that would have been sensible when infections were at their height. We are now at trace levels, just seems like grandstanding from government.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
We all still had to fight our way around the shops in March and April, yet nobody was commanded to wear a mask. Why start now - unless your aim is to frighten people back into staying at home whenever possible?
If and when I go out among the great unwashed I will be wearing a mask
The funny thing about Big Data is that in one of the few times and domains where it could help the people of this country, by tracking and tracing infection, this government has squarely fucked up. The PHE data is useful, the Teir 2 largely useless.
So munch nonsense about masks being written here this evening. In Germany for almost 2 months now you are allowed to sit at a table in a pub or restaurant with no mask. If you move from your table you are supposed to wear a mask.
Shops are risky because you walk past quite a few people, and you have no idea who they are and good luck with tracing the customers. Wearing a mask will welp sinificantly. And remember the idea is not to prevent every single infection, but to reduce the number of people you infect.
I won't be going to any shops for a while if they make masks compulsory. Wouldn't mind wearing them on public transport.
So munch nonsense about masks being written here this evening. In Germany for almost 2 months now you are allowed to sit at a table in a pub or restaurant with no mask. If you move from your table you are supposed to wear a mask.
Shops are risky because you walk past quite a few people, and you have no idea who they are and good luck with tracing the customers. Wearing a mask will welp sinificantly. And remember the idea is not to prevent every single infection, but to reduce the number of people you infect.
I won't be going to any shops for a while if they make masks compulsory. Wouldn't mind wearing them on public transport.
Good, I hope everybody that has your attitude does exactly the same because it will benefit the rest of us.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
We all still had to fight our way around the shops in March and April, yet nobody was commanded to wear a mask. Why start now - unless your aim is to frighten people back into staying at home whenever possible?
As I recall, there weren't any masks to be had for love nor money in March/April.
So munch nonsense about masks being written here this evening. In Germany for almost 2 months now you are allowed to sit at a table in a pub or restaurant with no mask. If you move from your table you are supposed to wear a mask.
Shops are risky because you walk past quite a few people, and you have no idea who they are and good luck with tracing the customers. Wearing a mask will welp sinificantly. And remember the idea is not to prevent every single infection, but to reduce the number of people you infect.
I won't be going to any shops for a while if they make masks compulsory. Wouldn't mind wearing them on public transport.
Good, I hope everybody that has your attitude does exactly the same because it will benefit the rest of us.
Not necessarily. If a large fraction of the population remains to be convinced of the benefits of wearing a bag around their faces the whole time, for the sake of controlling a disease that is in low prevalence and still declining without the use of such measures, then the news is that the righteous few won't have anywhere left to go shopping but supermarkets and pharmacies. The rest of physical retail will have gone bankrupt.
From a purely personal point of view, I imagine I probably shall end up going round Cambridge tomorrow in a mask - but only because I need to wear it for the train journey and pulling the nasty things off and putting them back on again over and over isn't considered especially advisable. But it doesn't mean I'll like it. If I'm fed up with the mask by the time I get home then, naturally, I'll be much less likely to want to repeat the experience, and consequently the physical retailers won't receive any more of my custom.
Now, obviously neither I nor anybody else in a shop full of mask wearers is going to particularly enjoy it if we catch Covid-19 either, but we come back at this juncture to the appreciation of risk. There is, in most of the country at this time, very little risk of any individual catching this disease. So, why discourage people from engaging in modes of economic activity that they can simply choose to avoid or substitute, by making those activities needlessly unpleasant?
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
We all still had to fight our way around the shops in March and April, yet nobody was commanded to wear a mask. Why start now - unless your aim is to frighten people back into staying at home whenever possible?
As I recall, there weren't any masks to be had for love nor money in March/April.
But were we not also told that a mask could easily be cobbled together out of old t-shirts and other things found in the home? There were ways and means.
In any event, even if the boffins have now changed their minds and think masks would've been useful earlier in the pandemic, wearing them now won't change the fact that we didn't wear them then. The question is to what extent they are useful in the present. The answer, in most settings, is probably "not very."
Very strange. As you say, it begs the question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
When, of course, the truth is that, in the great majority of the country at least, it isn't especially risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask, for the time being anyway. Who knows how much of a difference masks in shops might have made at the outset of this wretched affair, or how much of a difference they might yet make if there's another major flare-up for whatever reason, but right now there's not much of the disease around (and I'd wager that a large fraction of what's left is concentrated in hospitals and elderly care settings, where masks are already mandated anyway.)
Going back to your original point, if a socially distanced shop is so hazardous that everybody needs to wear a mask in order to protect everybody else then, logically, a socially distanced pub or restaurant is also too hazardous without masks - and, therefore, given that wearing a mask whilst eating and drinking is totally impracticable, the pubs and restaurants should all still be shut. Entreating people to go to dine out - to the extent that you craft a range of Treasury handouts to help catering businesses and encourage their clients to go there and spend money - whilst simultaneously forcing all shoppers to wear masks is a complete contradiction in terms.
Yes, it makes no sense. If anything, masks should be worn in pubs but not shops, impractical as that may be
How can you drink in a mask? If we were going to go down the mask route it should have been three months ago. Not now.
You didn't do something 3 months ago, so you can't possibly do it now. How responsible of you.
Er no, that’s rubbish. Infections were at their height in April - they are a fraction of that now. I can’t be bothered to dig out the mathematical evidence but it’s widely available. If we were going to have a mask policy that would have been sensible when infections were at their height. We are now at trace levels, just seems like grandstanding from government.
The level of stupidity reaches new heights. The importance of masks was not known 3 months ago. Now there is wide awareness of their efficacy. There is a strong possibility of further waves of the disease virtually anywhere in the UK. Masks can help in the prevention and control, They should be worn at all times when social distancing is not possible.
So munch nonsense about masks being written here this evening. In Germany for almost 2 months now you are allowed to sit at a table in a pub or restaurant with no mask. If you move from your table you are supposed to wear a mask.
Shops are risky because you walk past quite a few people, and you have no idea who they are and good luck with tracing the customers. Wearing a mask will welp sinificantly. And remember the idea is not to prevent every single infection, but to reduce the number of people you infect.
I won't be going to any shops for a while if they make masks compulsory. Wouldn't mind wearing them on public transport.
Whereas I will be (and have been) wearing a mask anytime I go into a shop
An Unexpected Struggle for Trump: Defining an Elusive Biden
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/us/biden-trump-campaign.html ... Trump has much less time to pile up negatives on Biden,” said Nelson Warfield, a Republican consultant who served as press secretary for Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996. “I made my first negative ad starring Hillary Clinton in 1992 and I kept doing ads criticizing her across the next 24 years. And I was by no means alone. Republicans have months to do to Biden what Republicans had over two decades to do to Hillary...
Leaving aside how sad it is that anyone spent a quarter of a century doing that as their day job, it’s another pointer to the differences between this contest and the last one.
So munch nonsense about masks being written here this evening. In Germany for almost 2 months now you are allowed to sit at a table in a pub or restaurant with no mask. If you move from your table you are supposed to wear a mask.
Shops are risky because you walk past quite a few people, and you have no idea who they are and good luck with tracing the customers. Wearing a mask will welp sinificantly. And remember the idea is not to prevent every single infection, but to reduce the number of people you infect.
I won't be going to any shops for a while if they make masks compulsory. Wouldn't mind wearing them on public transport.
Good, I hope everybody that has your attitude does exactly the same because it will benefit the rest of us.
The lockdown should never have applied to healthy and young people. Peter Hitchens and Lord Sumption are right.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
We all still had to fight our way around the shops in March and April, yet nobody was commanded to wear a mask. Why start now - unless your aim is to frighten people back into staying at home whenever possible?
As I recall, there weren't any masks to be had for love nor money in March/April.
But were we not also told that a mask could easily be cobbled together out of old t-shirts and other things found in the home? There were ways and means.
In any event, even if the boffins have now changed their minds and think masks would've been useful earlier in the pandemic, wearing them now won't change the fact that we didn't wear them then. The question is to what extent they are useful in the present. The answer, in most settings, is probably "not very."
So munch nonsense about masks being written here this evening. In Germany for almost 2 months now you are allowed to sit at a table in a pub or restaurant with no mask. If you move from your table you are supposed to wear a mask.
Shops are risky because you walk past quite a few people, and you have no idea who they are and good luck with tracing the customers. Wearing a mask will welp sinificantly. And remember the idea is not to prevent every single infection, but to reduce the number of people you infect.
I won't be going to any shops for a while if they make masks compulsory. Wouldn't mind wearing them on public transport.
Good, I hope everybody that has your attitude does exactly the same because it will benefit the rest of us.
The lockdown should never have applied to healthy and young people. Peter Hitchens and Lord Sumption are right.
Anecdotally. there were far more masks today here in Godalming, Surrey when I popped out to get something than there were last week - about 50% of shoppers were wearing them. When I had a look round last week I was one of only two people wearing one. So the message seems to be gettinmg through - down here at least.
It is only one poll and may be influenced by Rishi but I would just comment that I am not at all sure all the 'woke' goes down well in the red wall seats
Posted this on the previous thread Big_G but to many red wall voters, this is what the Labour Party is all about these days (and, no, not the guy being shouted at but the shouters)
Labour has a very big branding problem. This is the sort of behaviour many people believe will become commonplace if Labour gets into power. Good luck to SKS in trying to persuade people otherwise. It is like trying to persuade people the Conservatives are the party of the NHS......
ps apologies for a link to Watson......
Who is the guy? What's the context?
Does it need a context.
It is just foul and unacceptable
So if you discovered that the guy was a notorious alt right activist who had been winding up those people for hours in order to provoke what he wanted to film - that would make absolutely no difference to how you viewed the video?
Do you think someone provoking you with thoughts you don't like gives you a right for you to assault them?
No.
Now how about answering my question?
My answer is no.
If someone is a despicable odious toad the solution is to call them for what they are not physically attack them. Winding people up or being alt right is not a justification for physical violence.
I thought Corbyn was an odious antisemitic racist - would that give me the right to physically jostle him as was happening in that video?
So munch nonsense about masks being written here this evening. In Germany for almost 2 months now you are allowed to sit at a table in a pub or restaurant with no mask. If you move from your table you are supposed to wear a mask.
Shops are risky because you walk past quite a few people, and you have no idea who they are and good luck with tracing the customers. Wearing a mask will welp sinificantly. And remember the idea is not to prevent every single infection, but to reduce the number of people you infect.
I won't be going to any shops for a while if they make masks compulsory. Wouldn't mind wearing them on public transport.
Good, I hope everybody that has your attitude does exactly the same because it will benefit the rest of us.
The lockdown should never have applied to healthy and young people. Peter Hitchens and Lord Sumption are right.
Except that the lockdown wasn't to not infect the healthy people it was to ensure we didn't overload the NHS and infect the vulnerable.
If someone is an asymptomatic jerk who is too arrogant to wear a mask because they're healthy and young they can still leave a vapour trail that leads to dead bodies weeks down the line.
Very strange. As you say, it begs the question why on earth weren't we made to wear them before. I am hardly likely to feel encouraged to go to the pub for a night out if people are saying it's risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask
When, of course, the truth is that, in the great majority of the country at least, it isn't especially risky to go to a shop without wearing a mask, for the time being anyway. Who knows how much of a difference masks in shops might have made at the outset of this wretched affair, or how much of a difference they might yet make if there's another major flare-up for whatever reason, but right now there's not much of the disease around (and I'd wager that a large fraction of what's left is concentrated in hospitals and elderly care settings, where masks are already mandated anyway.)
Going back to your original point, if a socially distanced shop is so hazardous that everybody needs to wear a mask in order to protect everybody else then, logically, a socially distanced pub or restaurant is also too hazardous without masks - and, therefore, given that wearing a mask whilst eating and drinking is totally impracticable, the pubs and restaurants should all still be shut. Entreating people to go to dine out - to the extent that you craft a range of Treasury handouts to help catering businesses and encourage their clients to go there and spend money - whilst simultaneously forcing all shoppers to wear masks is a complete contradiction in terms.
Yes, it makes no sense. If anything, masks should be worn in pubs but not shops, impractical as that may be
How can you drink in a mask? If we were going to go down the mask route it should have been three months ago. Not now.
You could drink through a straw. Though as far as I know nobody is demanding that but it's certainly possible.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
We all still had to fight our way around the shops in March and April, yet nobody was commanded to wear a mask. Why start now - unless your aim is to frighten people back into staying at home whenever possible?
As I recall, there weren't any masks to be had for love nor money in March/April.
But were we not also told that a mask could easily be cobbled together out of old t-shirts and other things found in the home? There were ways and means.
In any event, even if the boffins have now changed their minds and think masks would've been useful earlier in the pandemic, wearing them now won't change the fact that we didn't wear them then. The question is to what extent they are useful in the present. The answer, in most settings, is probably "not very."
It is a percentage game. When there's 10 people in the supermarket, masks not really necessary. Masks more useful when 100 people in the supermarket.
Anecdotally. there were far more masks today here in Godalming, Surrey when I popped out to get something than there were last week - about 50% of shoppers were wearing them. When I had a look round last week I was one of only two people wearing one. So the message seems to be gettinmg through - down here at least.
I went on the Tube today for the first time since lockdown. Nearly four months.
95% mask usage. Those not wearing masks get hard stares
I don't know who is sticking by Boris - clearly many people enjoy pointless authoritarianism, economy destroying incompetence and appeasement of wokeist gangsters. I voted Tory in December but this is the least conservative government I've ever seen. A fucking disgrace in fact.
As yours truly said a while back, due to Covid, Joe Biden is waging a zoom version of the classic American front porch campaign - a style suited both to the times AND his personality, politics & appeal.
As for Trumpsky, he's bound and determined to take his 2020 circus tour back out on the road, regardless of changing needs, tastes and times.
To evaluate the soundness of the "show must go on" strategy, check out numbers below - US TV rankings and average viewers for three seasons of the American version of "The Apprentice" starting Donald Trump:
Songs of the Battle Ground States 2020 - PENNSYLVANIA
THE MOLLY MAGUIRES The Dubliners
Make way for the Molly Maguires They're drinkers, they're liars but they're men! Make way for the Molly Maguires You'll never see the likes of them again!
Down the mines no sunlight shines Those pits they're black as hell In modest style they do their time It's Paddy's prison cell And they curse the day they've traveled far Then drown their tears with a jar!
So make way for the Molly Maguires They're drinkers, they're liars but they're men! Make way for the Molly Maguires You'll never see the likes of them again!
Backs will break and muscles ache Down there there's no time to dream Of fields and farms, of a woman's arms Just dig that bloody seam Though they drain their bodies underground Who'll dare to push them around!
Matthew Parris on how people are using facemasks in Spain:
"They were wearing masks in the open air and taking them off to go into enclosed spaces! Not everybody was obeying what appeared to be common practice, but most were. Thus began our study, which continues as I write this seated outside a bar in a small village not far from the Mediterranean.
It seems that if you are serving or assisting in a bar, restaurant or shop, you keep your mask on at all times, indoors and out. So far, so rational. But customers’ habits are different. Broadly, these appear to encourage the wearing of masks for walking or transacting business, but not in social or convivial circumstances. So you wear a mask, for example, if strolling down the road accompanied or unaccompanied: even on an almost empty pavement, or by the highway, or down the footpath to the beach.
You arrive at (say) the bar of your choice in your mask. You then sit down at a table outside or within, or at the bar stool itself — and take off your mask! Likewise at the beach: arrive in mask, sit down on the sand among other beach-goers, spread out your towel, remove your mask. I hardly saw anyone wearing a mask unless they were standing up. In one village in the Alpujarras on the verdant slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, I emerged from a bar — busy, noisy, hot, and crowded with the usual old men drinking and talking and shouting at the football referee on the television, not one of them masked — and into a quiet street, down which a couple of villagers were walking, masked-up in the open air. We were lunching at the tables outside, watching as masked customers arrived in ones and twos, sat down close to other diners, and removed their masks."
Dedicated to Roger Stone, Donald Trump and the Republican Party
One night in late October, When I was far from sober, Returning with my load with manly pride, My feet began to stutter, So I lay down in the gutter, And a pig came near and lay down by my side;
A lady passing by was heard to say: "You can tell a man who boozes, By the company he chooses," And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
It looks to me as if the sudden focus on masks from Boris Johnson is a reaction to the publicity received earlier this week by the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. It seems to be a political gambit rather than part of a calculated strategy to combat the virus while reopening the economy. I am not sure that Boris Johnson is still in control of government policy, or that he has been since he went into hospital.
Do people in pubs have to wear them too? It doesn't make sense if they don't
Realistically the pubs and restaurants have to be exempt because you can't expect the clientele to eat and drink through a bloody mask.
This might even be part of a fiendish ploy to encourage people to patronise certain venues. I can just see the miserable bastards deciding that wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to force the population to wear the wretched things everywhere - EXCEPT in pubs, restaurants and (possibly) gyms? You thus incentivize the use of these facilities because they're the only places outside your own house where you can go without being forced to strap a bit of cloth over your face the whole time.
Seems crazy. I went to the supermarket today and found it extremely easy to not wear a mask or gloves whilst getting my shopping and not talking to anyone/exhaling in a way that might spread any diseases I have. At the pub, after a few looseners, people completely disregard others personal space and talk very loudly at close proximity. In gyms people breathe far more heavily with their mouths wider open than they would almost anywhere else (!).
It's also approaching the issue totally arse about face. If masks were really that vital for the general population then what we should've been doing is compelling people to wear them during the tight lockdown phase and then getting rid of them in most settings as part of the relaxation measures.
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
surely masks are only useful when people begin to mix again? No point in wearing one in my own living room or garden.
We all still had to fight our way around the shops in March and April, yet nobody was commanded to wear a mask. Why start now - unless your aim is to frighten people back into staying at home whenever possible?
If and when I go out among the great unwashed I will be wearing a mask
President Trump and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, are continuing to spar over the government’s response to the coronavirus... One of the points of contention is the seriousness of the disease caused by the virus, which has been spreading across the country at its fastest pace yet. Mr. Trump has argued that it is mostly harmless
investor Robert Herjavec said Thursday he believes the coronavirus pandemic has shifted attitudes about city living, altering the dynamics of the real estate market for years ahead.
“This is one of the greatest moves to the suburbs from urban areas since the 1950s or the ’60s,” Herjavec said on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley.”
Herjavec, CEO and founder of cybersecurity firm Herjavec Group, said he feels that the changes in geographic preference will persist beyond just the height of the Covid-19 outbreak, predicting it will “be a trend for a while.”
Anecdotally. there were far more masks today here in Godalming, Surrey when I popped out to get something than there were last week - about 50% of shoppers were wearing them. When I had a look round last week I was one of only two people wearing one. So the message seems to be gettinmg through - down here at least.
I went on the Tube today for the first time since lockdown. Nearly four months.
95% mask usage. Those not wearing masks get hard stares
But as the point is being made above - wearing masks on public transport is a minor inconvenience that isn’t actually going to seriously affect people’s decisions on what they do. But tightening rules in pretty safe environments eg. Shops where it is pretty easy to social distance and where you never have prolonged exposure to any single individual, completely undermines attempts to encourage people to take advantage of the wider opening of the economy. Which is crazy at a time when the prevalence of the virus in most arrears is incredibly low, and the chances of coming into contact with an infected person, let alone actually catching the virus is minuscule.
Tightening mask regulations could be held back to target certain areas if there are signs of local outbreaks. Trying to make it a permanent feature of life is just likely to delay the chances of life returning to normal. I think it’s made worse because the British, more than most, are more likely to follow mandated laws/rules. A lot of Europe at the moment have these rules in place, but they are just being ignored. See the Parris article above. The same is definitely true in France.
Anecdote v. data? The data suggests they are nowhere near herd immunity.
I am still holding out hope that there is an unknown factor in Covid-19 spread that means effective herd immunity is far lower than what the mathematical figure would need to be.
Anecdote v. data? The data suggests they are nowhere near herd immunity.
I am still holding out hope that there is an unknown factor in Covid-19 spread that means effective herd immunity is far lower than what the mathematical figure would need to be.
Certainly the case numbers in some of the London Boroughs worse hit back in April/May are now tiny. I really doubt our lockdown behaviour in the capital has been that good.
President Trump and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, are continuing to spar over the government’s response to the coronavirus... One of the points of contention is the seriousness of the disease caused by the virus, which has been spreading across the country at its fastest pace yet. Mr. Trump has argued that it is mostly harmless
Anecdote v. data? The data suggests they are nowhere near herd immunity.
I am still holding out hope that there is an unknown factor in Covid-19 spread that means effective herd immunity is far lower than what the mathematical figure would need to be.
Certainly the case numbers in some of the London Boroughs worse hit back in April/May are now tiny. I really doubt our lockdown behaviour in the capital has been that good.
And this is on the back of a testing regime that is an order of magnitude higher than what we had then. Even in America (where it is obvious from hospital reports that they still have a bit problem) it is clear that the constant "records" for daily numbers are indicative of far wider testing, given the death numbers are not increasing anywhere close to proportionally.
It looks to me as if the sudden focus on masks from Boris Johnson is a reaction to the publicity received earlier this week by the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. It seems to be a political gambit rather than part of a calculated strategy to combat the virus while reopening the economy. I am not sure that Boris Johnson is still in control of government policy, or that he has been since he went into hospital.
Vanity and political expediency have always been the main drivers throughout Johnson's career.
As a political assassin he is second to none, as a leader, not so much.
Anecdote v. data? The data suggests they are nowhere near herd immunity.
I am still holding out hope that there is an unknown factor in Covid-19 spread that means effective herd immunity is far lower than what the mathematical figure would need to be.
Certainly the case numbers in some of the London Boroughs worse hit back in April/May are now tiny. I really doubt our lockdown behaviour in the capital has been that good.
And this is on the back of a testing regime that is an order of magnitude higher than what we had then. Even in America (where it is obvious from hospital reports that they still have a bit problem) it is clear that the constant "records" for daily numbers are indicative of far wider testing, given the death numbers are not increasing anywhere close to proportionally.
Indeed but I am fairly certain we are about to see a significant rise in American deaths starting about now-ish.
Doctors have got vastly better at treating Covid so even with the same numbers hospitalised/ICU'd we would expect fewer deaths. But American ICU numbers are going through the roof at the moment.
President Trump and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, are continuing to spar over the government’s response to the coronavirus... One of the points of contention is the seriousness of the disease caused by the virus, which has been spreading across the country at its fastest pace yet. Mr. Trump has argued that it is mostly harmless
The model seems to be based mainly on Iowa and New Hampshire. I wouldn't bet based on it.
Whereas Iowa and New Hampshire might be extrapolated nationally in less dynamic times to demonstrate trends, changing circumstances don't appear to be considered in his model. Whereas it might have been wholly accurate 3 months again, it doesn't seem so now.
Comments
Imposing the widespread use of masks the other way around - when you're opening everything up - is odd and potentially counter-productive. Prevalence of the disease in most of the country is now very low, but if you're now telling the whole of what is still, to a considerable extent, a very frightened population that routine mask wearing is expected then the message this communicates is "Please save businesses by spending money in them (except it's so bloody dangerous out there that we'll probably all get sick from inhaling each others' germs if we don't wrap a garment round our faces.)" It's an unwelcome and largely ineffective imposition upon the confident, and a strong incentive for the anxious to continue to behave as if it were late March and stay at home.
At this juncture one would've thought that mandating the use of masks in the higher risk environments and professions was altogether sufficient.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1281590859679571972?s=09
Most of the people we know are very good at hanging on to their money
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/10/premiership-tackling-burnout-fears-as-packed-fixture-list-announced-rugby-union
WHO and UK scientists werent in favour as not enough scientific evidence
UK politicians wanted to follow science
As weight of scientific evidence increased our own scientists and politicians were wedded to their earlier decisions so didnt react quickly enough.
FFS.
If we were going to do that then it should have been in April when infections were peaking.
There are almost no infections in most areas now, ergo Boris is a fucking idiot.
Yet another massive centralisation form the great decentralisers?
9.6 for Trump on 300-329 EV though...
Going back to your original point, if a socially distanced shop is so hazardous that everybody needs to wear a mask in order to protect everybody else then, logically, a socially distanced pub or restaurant is also too hazardous without masks - and, therefore, given that wearing a mask whilst eating and drinking is totally impracticable, the pubs and restaurants should all still be shut. Entreating people to go to dine out - to the extent that you craft a range of Treasury handouts to help catering businesses and encourage their clients to go there and spend money - whilst simultaneously forcing all shoppers to wear masks is a complete contradiction in terms.
Night all.
As it stands, vulnerable people who have been shielded for three months can now hug their grandchildren, who have been living with parents, who've been going to shops maskless!
I note though that people are not wearing them shopping in the ad.
https://youtu.be/jiYx2L3yTuo
In Germany for almost 2 months now you are allowed to sit at a table in a pub or restaurant with no mask. If you move from your table you are supposed to wear a mask.
Shops are risky because you walk past quite a few people, and you have no idea who they are and good luck with tracing the customers. Wearing a mask will welp sinificantly. And remember the idea is not to prevent every single infection, but to reduce the number of people you infect.
Thanks for sharing that.
From a purely personal point of view, I imagine I probably shall end up going round Cambridge tomorrow in a mask - but only because I need to wear it for the train journey and pulling the nasty things off and putting them back on again over and over isn't considered especially advisable. But it doesn't mean I'll like it. If I'm fed up with the mask by the time I get home then, naturally, I'll be much less likely to want to repeat the experience, and consequently the physical retailers won't receive any more of my custom.
Now, obviously neither I nor anybody else in a shop full of mask wearers is going to particularly enjoy it if we catch Covid-19 either, but we come back at this juncture to the appreciation of risk. There is, in most of the country at this time, very little risk of any individual catching this disease. So, why discourage people from engaging in modes of economic activity that they can simply choose to avoid or substitute, by making those activities needlessly unpleasant?
In any event, even if the boffins have now changed their minds and think masks would've been useful earlier in the pandemic, wearing them now won't change the fact that we didn't wear them then. The question is to what extent they are useful in the present. The answer, in most settings, is probably "not very."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/us/biden-trump-campaign.html
... Trump has much less time to pile up negatives on Biden,” said Nelson Warfield, a Republican consultant who served as press secretary for Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996. “I made my first negative ad starring Hillary Clinton in 1992 and I kept doing ads criticizing her across the next 24 years. And I was by no means alone. Republicans have months to do to Biden what Republicans had over two decades to do to Hillary...
Leaving aside how sad it is that anyone spent a quarter of a century doing that as their day job, it’s another pointer to the differences between this contest and the last one.
If someone is a despicable odious toad the solution is to call them for what they are not physically attack them. Winding people up or being alt right is not a justification for physical violence.
I thought Corbyn was an odious antisemitic racist - would that give me the right to physically jostle him as was happening in that video?
My answer is no.
If someone is an asymptomatic jerk who is too arrogant to wear a mask because they're healthy and young they can still leave a vapour trail that leads to dead bodies weeks down the line.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/whitehall-looks-north-in-plan-to-make-york-britains-second-city-n2zb3dmnd
95% mask usage. Those not wearing masks get hard stares
Con 361 (-4)
Lab 205 (+2)
LD 3 (-8)
SNP 58 (+10)
https://tinyurl.com/y9syqjqj
2 Lab gains from Con: Bury North, Kensington.
https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1281741247674306563?s=20
This is unimaginably bad. Something no one alive has experienced, in peacetime
As for Trumpsky, he's bound and determined to take his 2020 circus tour back out on the road, regardless of changing needs, tastes and times.
To evaluate the soundness of the "show must go on" strategy, check out numbers below - US TV rankings and average viewers for three seasons of the American version of "The Apprentice" starting Donald Trump:
Season 1 > ranked #7 (20.7 million)
Season 5 > ranked #51 (5.7 million)
Season 10 > ranked #113 (4.7 million)
THE MOLLY MAGUIRES
The Dubliners
Make way for the Molly Maguires
They're drinkers, they're liars but they're men!
Make way for the Molly Maguires
You'll never see the likes of them again!
Down the mines no sunlight shines
Those pits they're black as hell
In modest style they do their time
It's Paddy's prison cell
And they curse the day they've traveled far
Then drown their tears with a jar!
So make way for the Molly Maguires
They're drinkers, they're liars but they're men!
Make way for the Molly Maguires
You'll never see the likes of them again!
Backs will break and muscles ache
Down there there's no time to dream
Of fields and farms, of a woman's arms
Just dig that bloody seam
Though they drain their bodies underground
Who'll dare to push them around!
"They were wearing masks in the open air and taking them off to go into enclosed spaces! Not everybody was obeying what appeared to be common practice, but most were. Thus began our study, which continues as I write this seated outside a bar in a small village not far from the Mediterranean.
It seems that if you are serving or assisting in a bar, restaurant or shop, you keep your mask on at all times, indoors and out. So far, so rational. But customers’ habits are different. Broadly, these appear to encourage the wearing of masks for walking or transacting business, but not in social or convivial circumstances. So you wear a mask, for example, if strolling down the road accompanied or unaccompanied: even on an almost empty pavement, or by the highway, or down the footpath to the beach.
You arrive at (say) the bar of your choice in your mask. You then sit down at a table outside or within, or at the bar stool itself — and take off your mask! Likewise at the beach: arrive in mask, sit down on the sand among other beach-goers, spread out your towel, remove your mask. I hardly saw anyone wearing a mask unless they were standing up. In one village in the Alpujarras on the verdant slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, I emerged from a bar — busy, noisy, hot, and crowded with the usual old men drinking and talking and shouting at the football referee on the television, not one of them masked — and into a quiet street, down which a couple of villagers were walking, masked-up in the open air. We were lunching at the tables outside, watching as masked customers arrived in ones and twos, sat down close to other diners, and removed their masks."
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-spanish-approach-to-face-masks
One night in late October,
When I was far from sober,
Returning with my load with manly pride,
My feet began to stutter,
So I lay down in the gutter,
And a pig came near and lay down by my side;
A lady passing by was heard to say:
"You can tell a man who boozes,
By the company he chooses,"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
It’s his net worth. Doesn’t mean he has 115 million sitting around in a bank account.
Getting giddy over a single poll seems a bit silly.
An answer to the question ‘what did Eadric and Henrietta do next’?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/10/vast-brexit-customs-clearance-centre-to-be-built-in-kent
“This is one of the greatest moves to the suburbs from urban areas since the 1950s or the ’60s,” Herjavec said on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley.”
Herjavec, CEO and founder of cybersecurity firm Herjavec Group, said he feels that the changes in geographic preference will persist beyond just the height of the Covid-19 outbreak, predicting it will “be a trend for a while.”
Tightening mask regulations could be held back to target certain areas if there are signs of local outbreaks. Trying to make it a permanent feature of life is just likely to delay the chances of life returning to normal. I think it’s made worse because the British, more than most, are more likely to follow mandated laws/rules. A lot of Europe at the moment have these rules in place, but they are just being ignored. See the Parris article above. The same is definitely true in France.
As a political assassin he is second to none, as a leader, not so much.
Doctors have got vastly better at treating Covid so even with the same numbers hospitalised/ICU'd we would expect fewer deaths. But American ICU numbers are going through the roof at the moment.
appear to be considered in his model. Whereas it might have been wholly accurate 3 months again, it doesn't seem so now.