Down here in England I did my weekly shop for elderly neighbours today. Perhaps 10-20% wearing masks in the supermarket. No hassles, no upsets. People just getting on with it. Was thanked by one of the staff last week for helping to protect them by wearing a mask. That'll do me.
Do find the reaction by some that this is some form of enslavement and denial of basic rights somewhat over the top.
But in England it remains a choice. You can choose whether or not to wear one, and you won't be fined or refused access to a shop if you don't. I have absolutely no problem with people wearing masks if they want to, even though I completely disagree with it, because it's utterly pointless and achieves nothing at this point in the game. If you want to, fine, knock yourself out. Kid yourself all you like that there's a point to it, and you're being all heroic. No skin off my nose.
Making it compulsory completely changes the dynamic of it all. It's day one, and already social media is full of aggressive idiots using foul language and abuse to shame people they've seen without masks. There's no attempt to understand or empathise with the fact that loads of people have valid medical exemptions. It's creating the impression that the Big Bad World is far more dangerous than it really is, which is ultimately very damaging to the attitudes people have to risk. It affects people's social interactions, many people find it threatening and scary, it affects the ability of the deaf to communicate, and it's actually going to make a lot of people stay at home more. It's going to potentially damage a lot of businesses.
It's also entirely unreasonable for governments to stick their noses in like this, and Nicola Sturgeon's reasons to me sound like a massive pile of s***. All she's concerned about is next year's Scottish Parliament elections, and looking heroic to her core vote. The SNP is a remarkably tight ship and absolutely no-one is allowed to go off-message, and that includes the very large number of people who are nationalist enough to always vote for her without question. This has been imposed with no debate, no consultation, no justification, no information on how success will be measured, how long it will go on for, what the goal of it is, what research it's based on...nothing. All we're getting is that we should be shamed into it, and those daring to raise questions around it are getting absolutely nothing but abuse.
If that doesn't worry you, I think you have far too much naive faith in authority.
