Face coverings to become mandatory in shops in England (includes poll)

[takno]

Imagine that wearing a face mask could save only 0.1% of air-borne infections of another person. It's much higher than that but if you as an individual had the potential ability to save just one person from getting seriously ill or worse for the inconvenience of wearing a face covering, why wouldn't you?

Because by constantly touching it I'm just spreading the infections another way. Because lack of ability to concentrate while I'm wearing a mask could lead to me tripping on stairs. Because more than about 10 minutes with a mask on leaves me with a resting pulse over 100, which isn't great whether it's being caused by anxiety or something else.

I suspect there is a core of people, generally young and healthy ones, for whom breathing has never been the slightest issue, and believe that everybody else is complaining about the same level of passing discomfort as they experience when wearing a mask. People aren't saying they will stay in because they want to risk the lives of grannies, or are being obtuse. They are saying that for them wearing a mask is somewhere between a serious sacrifice and medically insane.

If you are proposing measures which limit the ability of a significant proportion of the population to engage in everyday life, you should be able to offer decent evidence that they will help quite a lot, and will be strictly time-limited to the period the evidence supports. Right now we have no decent evidence and almost no prevalence. Countries where the political debate is a little more advanced than it perhaps is in the UK are starting to remove mask requirements. Now is not the time to start adding them here

 

[Robin Edwards]

Indeed it is. Everything we do has consequences- our cars kill people through pollution, our clothing kills people in their manufacture, etc etc.

But some things are so easy to do - making arguments not to do them anyway is equally silly in my honest opinion.
Next time I drive I won't bother to look for pedestrians crossing - because it's inconvenient for me to do so? Of course not, no.
As you rightly say, actions have consequences but some things are just so easy to do to benefit those more at risk than the wearer of a simple face mask, then trying to defend arguments against just reminds me of the fuss people made when mandated to wear seat belts.

 

[cuccir]

Evidence is emerging (eg https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext) that mask wearing has some benefit in preventing transmission, but less than phyiscal distancing. That benefit is felt most strongly when indoors for prolonged periods of time, and in-health care settings (ie where the virus is more likely to be kicking about). There's pretty much no benefit outside.

So I think the question is not about whether it has benefit, but at what level of infection, in what sort of spaces, and in combinaton with which other measures is mask-wearing necessary?

I don't think we need mandatory masks at the moment, but I wish guidance were clearer. Personally, I'd have given the majority of (indoor) business/organization a simple rule: 2m distancing = no requirement for facemasks; 1m distancing = facemasks required when infections are above a certain rate (go to scientific evidence to get that number); no distancing = mandaotory facemasks.

There are a smaller number settings where I'd make it compulsory until a vaccine, unless a site has 'extreme' (>3m and lots of plastic panels) social distancing. Healthcare settings are obvious ones; factories are clearly risk-sites for transmission and might require similar rules; and the third group, though not currently open in the UK, would be any indoor sites where people project their breath (gyms, concert halls, soft plays, churches with singing).

Would i choose to put myself in discomfort, risk weakening my own immune system to possibly save someone i do not know? Nope.

Ignoring the morals, this is a short-sighted argument. That person might be teacher at your kids' school, or the landlord of your favourite pub, or the train driver on your commute, etc etc . If you let covid-19 spread in your community, you will end up creating disadvantages for yourself which are worse than wearing a mask.

The only really coherent arguments against mask wearing are contextual: either that specific spaces don't require them (eg outside); or that low-infection rates don't require them.

 

[DB]

Imagine that wearing a face mask could save only 0.1% of air-borne infections of another person. It's much higher than that but if you as an individual had the potential ability to save just one person from getting seriously ill or worse for the inconvenience of wearing a face covering, why wouldn't you?

And this is exactly the tactic which the locktivists use to try to shame others into doing what they want.

You could use the same argument about anything with the slightest risk - e.g. you should stop driving because there's a 0.1% chance of having an accident and injuring or killing someone.

 

[Robin Edwards]

Because by constantly touching it I'm just spreading the infections another way. Because lack of ability to concentrate while I'm wearing a mask could lead to me tripping on stairs. Because more than about 10 minutes with a mask on leaves me with a resting pulse over 100, which isn't great whether it's being caused by anxiety or something else.

I suspect there is a core of people, generally young and healthy ones, for whom breathing has never been the slightest issue, and believe that everybody else is complaining about the same level of passing discomfort as they experience when wearing a mask. People aren't saying they will stay in because they want to risk the lives of grannies, or are being obtuse. They are saying that for them wearing a mask is somewhere between a serious sacrifice and medically insane.

If you are proposing measures which limit the ability of a significant proportion of the population to engage in everyday life, you should be able to offer decent evidence that they will help quite a lot, and will be strictly time-limited to the period the evidence supports. Right now we have no decent evidence and almost no prevalence. Countries where the political debate is a little more advanced than it perhaps is in the UK are starting to remove mask requirements. Now is not the time to start adding them here

I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water, tackno. I'm simply suggesting that most people can offer some respect to others through the simple task of wearing a face mask. Clearly there will be those that face challenges as you suggest and there are always exceptions. I don't believe that those facing such exceptions are the significant proportion of the population however.

 

[Yew]

I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water, tackno. I'm simply suggesting that most people can offer some respect to others through the simple task of wearing a face mask. Clearly there will be those that face challenges as you suggest and there are always exceptions. I don't believe that those facing such exceptions are the significant proportion of the population however.

Again, your fundamental premise is flawed, there is no clear evidence of effectiveness in community settings with short-term contact such as that seen in shops. Don't you dare suggest that I'm being disrespectful for not wishing to buy in with your delusional belief that this is some sort of paacea.

 

[Robin Edwards]

And this is exactly the tactic which the locktivists use to try to shame others into doing what they want.

You could use the same argument about anything with the slightest risk - e.g. you should stop driving because there's a 0.1% chance of having an accident and injuring or killing someone.

David - it's how society works my friend. We do simple things for the benefit of others.
No tactics - other than a defence mechanism in some that want to feel victimised by socially accepted rules?
What other things are folk prevented from doing as a result of imposing socially accepted rules - smoking in public places might be an easy one to start.

 

[mmh]

Imagine that wearing a face mask could save only 0.1% of air-borne infections of another person. It's much higher than that but if you as an individual had the potential ability to save just one person from getting seriously ill or worse for the inconvenience of wearing a face covering, why wouldn't you?

I wouldn't because it's a massive overreaction of dubious merit sold with emotive language of the like of "save just one person."

Persuasion by fear and shame is not the sort of health advice I'll be taking seriously, neither will I be taking authoritative pronouncements like "it's much higher than that" seriously.

 

[Robin Edwards]

Again, your fundamental premise is flawed, there is no clear evidence of effectiveness in community settings with short-term contact such as that seen in shops. Don't you dare suggest that I'm being disrespectful for not wishing to buy in with your delusional belief that this is some sort of paacea.

You don't have to buy in to my thinking at all Yew

 

[MikeWM]

No. First we need to do this:


1. Establish that the virus can be caught from asymptomatic people. While the answer is probably yes, the evidence so far is weak and mostly anecdotal (and some of these anecdotes have turned out to be wrong).

2. Establish that cloth masks have a positive effect on lowering the likelihood that a healthy person will catch the virus from an asymptomatic carrier. Proper evidence from studies. This *does not* include things such as the President of the Royal Society going around throwing hundreds of years of best practice out of the window in order to forward an agenda - the wider issue of the damage to science from this sort of behaviour is deeply concerning.

3. Explain why you would introduce these measures now, when the virus is all but gone from the wider community.

4. Explain the conditions when these measures will no longer be required.

5. Set out what mitigations you are putting in place to help those who will be significantly impacted by these measures. That includes the effect on the deaf, the blind and partially-sighted, and those with breathing difficulties. And set out what public information campaigns are going to be put in place to stop people trying to shame people who legitimately cannot do so, eg. by plastering their picture all over social media.


*Once* you've done those 5 things, we can have an informed debate as to whether this is a good idea. (The same applies to the requirement for public transport). Until then, a hard no.

 

[takno]

I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water, tackno. I'm simply suggesting that most people can offer some respect to others through the simple task of wearing a face mask. Clearly there will be those that face challenges as you suggest and there are always exceptions. I don't believe that those facing such exceptions are the significant proportion of the population however.

If you're going to quote people's names back to them in that slightly patronising and unpleasant way, please try to spell them correctly. Your belief about what proportion of the population is affected and in what way isn't particularly helpful here. Given that people certainly do generally care about others, the number of people resisting the urge to wear masks without a law forcing them to strongly suggests that they suffer from a greater level of discomfort than you, or that the evidence is so weak that it isn't even worth mild discomfort. Either way, your breezy demands for intervention in their lives aren't well-suppprted

 

[Starmill]

I've been wearing my face covering to the local supermarket for quite some time. I haven't been in any other shops yet.

 

[DB]

Evidence is emerging (eg https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext) that mask wearing has some benefit in preventing transmission, but less than phyiscal distancing. That benefit is felt most strongly when indoors for prolonged periods of time, and in-health care settings (ie where the virus is more likely to be kicking about). There's pretty much no benefit outside.

That again comes under the category of 'weak':

For the general public, evidence shows that physical distancing of more than 1 m is highly effective and that face masks are associated with protection, even in non-health-care settings, with either disposable surgical masks or reusable 12–16-layer cotton ones, although much of this evidence was on mask use within households and among contacts of cases.

So it seems to be primarily looking at 'either disposable surgical masks or reusable 12–16-layer cotton ones' not some scratty bit of single-layer fabric as many/most people will be wearing, and it also notes that 'much of this evidence was on mask use within households and among contacts of cases.' - so of questionable relevance to the situation in shops, where people will be briefly passing each other, and may well not be infected anyway.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

Interestingly the CMO and CSA have been very quiet whilst this debacle is ongoing.

 

[Richard Scott]

We still don't seem to be accepting the fact that we cannot control this virus. If facemasks slow the spread then that's all they do, most of us will still get it and, to be honest, if I've got to have it would rather have it now than in 10 years time as I'll be higher risk then. When is someone going to stand up and say this is a ridiculous state of affairs, we need to have transmission levels that allow NHS to cope otherwise we're stuck in this rut for a very long time. I know this sounds harsh but that is the reality and we need a good dose of that now but no-one in government or medical world seems to be prepared to say it. I know why but it's a real shame our modern society has come to be run by the media.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

We still don't seem to be accepting the fact that we cannot control this virus. If facemasks slow the spread then that's all they do, most of us will still get it and, to be honest, if I've got to have it would rather have it now than in 10 years time as I'll be higher risk then. When is someone going to stand up and say this is a ridiculous state of affairs, we need to have transmission levels that allow NHS to cope otherwise we're stuck in this rut for a very long time. I know this sounds hars

If we weren't controlling the virus there wouldn't be a sustained drop in the number of cases and deaths, and the NHS would be overwhelmed.

 

[Richard Scott]

If we weren't controlling the virus there wouldn't be a sustained drop in the number of cases and deaths, and the NHS would be overwhelmed.

We're not controlling it, we may be managing it, though. There's a difference.

 

[birchesgreen]

Shame. I don't seen people in far-eastern countries exhibiting weakened immune systems. In Japan the practice has been common for over 100 years since Flu outbreaks.
Would you care if someone in your family died by contracting a virus that could have been prevented if someone you don't know could have been bothered?

People in Asia don't wear masks all the time as some allege here, indeed most do wear masks because of pollution not other reasons. Are you prepared to wear a mask all the time, just in case you might have an illness?

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

We're not controlling it, we may be managing it, though. There's a difference.

Mandating face coverings would also be a way of managing it, as per all the other mitigations in place, surely?

 

[Richard Scott]

Mandating face coverings would also be a way of managing it, as per all the other mitigations in place, surely?

That was my point, if we manage it how long for as we probably can't eliminate it? I don't want to be a slave to this virus for next 10 years or so or even 10 months come to that.

 

[DB]

We're not controlling it, we may be managing it, though. There's a difference.

Indeed- the spread is being slowed, but there's no reason to assume it will go away. The initial reason for the restrictions was to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, but now seems to have morphed into eradicating the virus - and without a vaccine (which may or may not appear, but could be quite a while if it does), this isn't going to happen. Even with a vaccine it could take a long time - only one human virus which was formerly widespread has ever been eradicated (Smallpox) and that took not far short of 200 years from the first vaccine!

 

[Bantamzen]

People in Asia don't wear masks all the time as some allege here, indeed most do wear masks because of pollution not other reasons. Are you prepared to wear a mask all the time, just in case you might have an illness?

Indeed, I wish people would stop perpetuating this myth. People in some countries in the Far East wear masks when they have symptoms.

 

[jfollows]

My starting point is that most of the members of the current government are liars and hypocrites, and I can't work out which ones aren't, so I don't believe a word any of them says.

Instead I have examined the evidence available to me.

It is clear to me that my wearing a face mask in an environment such as a shop, in which it will be impossible to maintain even a 1m distance from others, will reduce the risk that I infect someone else should I myself be infected.

So I will always wear a face mask in such an environment, regardless of the law, until the circumstances change.

I recognise that the likelihood of being infected myself, not realising it, and then passing on the infection to someone else is low. But it's not zero.

I have not actually been to a shop since early March.

Making others more likely to wear a face mask will in turn make it more likely that I will go to a shop. However I have no plans to do so currently.

Making it "compulsory" to do so is something which should have been done weeks ago, at the same time as similar rules were introduced for public transport, and their current absence just adds to confusion caused in part by this government's erratic response to the current circumstances.

 

[DB]

Mandating face coverings would also be a way of managing it, as per all the other mitigations in place, surely?

But there is no strong evidence that this does actually make any appreciable difference, and it perpetuates an atmosphere of fear. It is also completely at odds with reopening pubs, restaurants and other leisure facilities, where people will be in the same general area as the same others for longer periods, and mask-wearing is in many cases impossible. If these are allowed to open (as they are), then it further undermines the already weak argument for wearning masks in shops.

 

[DB]

Making it "compulsory" to do some is something which should have been done weeks ago, at the same time as similar rules were introduced for public transport, and their current absence just adds to confusion caused in part by this government's erratic response to the current circumstances.

So presumably you think that all pubs, restaurants and other indoor leisure facilities should remain closed indefinitely then?

 

[nlogax]

The initial reason for the restrictions was to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, but now seems to have morphed into eradicating the virus - and without a vaccine (which may or may not appear, but could be quite a while if it does), this isn't going to happen.

Has anyone in the political realm in the UK actually come out and said 'we want to eradicate the virus without a vaccine'? I don't recall hearing that from anyone, and SAGE have already indicated that would be impossible.

 

[talldave]

Mandating face coverings would also be a way of managing it, as per all the other mitigations in place, surely?

Not if they don't work, no.

 

[DB]

Has anyone in the political realm in the UK actually come out and said 'we want to eradicate the virus without a vaccine'? I don't recall hearing that from anyone, and SAGE have already indicated that would be impossible.

Course they haven't, because that would open them to ridicule. Instead they act in such a way as to let it be assumed by many that this is the intention. If the goal isn't to eradicate it, then the restrictions would need to be permanent, and they have said that they are temporary (what that actually means remains to be seen, of course).

 

[Bantamzen]

Has anyone in the political realm in the UK actually come out and said 'we want to eradicate the virus without a vaccine'? I don't recall hearing that from anyone, and SAGE have already indicated that would be impossible.

The goalposts have been moving ever since the stated aim of getting NHS capacity up was announced. I'm starting to suspect that even if a vaccine were to be developed, there would be other reasons why masks and distancing would have to be maintained.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

But there is no strong evidence that this does actually make any appreciable difference, and it perpetuates an atmosphere of fear. It is also completely at odds with reopening pubs, restaurants and other leisure facilities, where people will be in the same general area as the same others for longer periods, and mask-wearing is in many cases impossible. If these are allowed to open (as they are), then it further undermines the already weak argument for wearning masks in shops.

Not if they don't work, no.

Sorry - I was trying to ask @Richard Scott if mandating face coverings was a way of managing or controlling the virus - there's apparently a difference.

FWIW I'm completely against mandating it in shops.