UK face coverings discussion

[johnnychips]

What this has made me realise is how bad my breath must be if it smells like the mask. Now getting through three packs of Trebor Extra Strong a week.

 

[3rd rail land]

I'm not putting the washing machine on every day just for one mask!

I would just wash my masks whenever I put on a load of washing but the masks are supposed to be washed at a high temperature. Too high a temperature for my clothes.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I would just wash my masks whenever I put on a load of washing but the masks are supposed to be washed at a high temperature. Too high a temperature for my clothes.

You could boil it in a small saucepan?

Face coverings should only be worn for a maximum of 4 hours and then washed or disposed of.

Should. How many people are actually doing that in practice?

I'll be the first to admit I'm not!

When I'm out on the trains, it's the one mask all day ( blue ear loop type ), which could be anything up to 16 hours ( as was the case in my Rail Rover week in August ). If I'm nipping into a shop for five minutes, several times a week, I'm afraid that's the one mask all week getting used for a few minutes at a time then going into my jacket pocket until the next shop a day or two later...

I'm not wearing them for any reason other than to access shops and trains.

 

[sheff1]

France has made masks compulsory in nearly every situation. So if they stop the spread why are they entering into a month long lockdown?

Until recently the most vocal mask (and lockdown) advocate on this forum would have given us the answer within minutes but I notice he has been rather quiet for the last few days. Perhaps he has finally realised the pointlesness of it all.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

I noticed these stickers appearing on boards at one London Underground station this evening
(White sticker reads ‘How many more rights will you give up?’)

 

[richardsun]

There was a report on masks on tv this week. They tested the bacteria on a mask that had been worn for an hour and not washed. It was horrible. There was loads on there.

Don't suppose you can remember which programme this was on SJN? I'd be interested to see (and share!) it.

 

[6862]

I noticed these stickers appearing on boards at one London Underground station this evening
(White sticker reads ‘How many more rights will you give up?’)

I like it! Hopefully we'll see more of this sort of thing!

 

[The Ham]

Until recently the most vocal mask (and lockdown) advocate on this forum would have given us the answer within minutes but I notice he has been rather quiet for the last few days. Perhaps he has finally realised the pointlesness of it all.

Whilst I would generally think that lockdowns and masks could bring some benefits they have their problems, the biggest being that it appears that many people have no symptoms and so aren't as careful as they would have been if they thought that they had it.

The main advantage of lockdowns is that if they are done right then the amount of social interactions reduce, which should then reduce the number of cases. However rarely are they able to be as effective as those in authority would like (often due to the actions of others in authority or linked to those in authority).

As an example whilst working from home people aren't at risk of getting infected by a work colleague, who may have got it from an older child from school/college, etc. For me where the team I'm in there's 6 of us therefore WFH or in the office doesn't change that risk a lot. However there's still a whole building of other people who were could get it from if or hygiene isn't up to scratch from various surfaces which we need to interact with.

Likewise the main advantage of masks is to reduce the range of the breath of people, that generally means that people can be a bit closer than they otherwise could for the same level of risk. However, there's too many who think that masks give protection and so significantly reduce distances and increase time, thus putting them at a much higher risk than they would have otherwise been at.

That's before you consider (and I've no reason to doubt the source of this) that some uni students are having Covid-19 parties. Which is fine if they don't interact with anyone else for 10 days after, the problem is that I suspect that they are carrying on as normal.

Whilst such parties do sound reckless, there could be some logic in it (assuming you get immunity) in that as long as they get it 3 weeks before going home they are then not going to be able to spread it about. As once we get to circa 60% having had it then the risk of spread starts to fall significantly as the number of people who haven't had it who come in contact with someone with it starts to fall (if none has had it everyone you meet could get it from you, whilst it might be that nearly everyone you meet will have had it once 60% of people have had it, that means that you may not infect anyone else and so your R value is much lower).

Given the rate of spread in the urban centres chances are that they'll get to 60% rather rapidly, from 20 cases increasing at at a rate of 1.2 per week you get to 5,700 cases a week after 26 weeks, the last 7 weeks of that would be about 25,000 cases, go forward another 7 weeks and you're probably looking at close to the 60% rate even allowing for a slight slowing down due to the limiting factor of people having had it already.

The problem is that uncontrolled the rate of increase is likely to be higher (remember in the summer rates were 0.9-1.2 whilst now they're closer to 1.4-1.7) there's the potential that without restrictions those rates would be higher still.

Whilst many state the first lockdown didn't stop the virus (which is true) and therefore it was pointless (which I'll argue it wasn't), by buying ourselves time we've got treatments which improve the outcomes.

I know that some don't like the way that the BBC had been reporting this, but this article is quite interesting:

Covid: Back to intensive care, where I notice one major change

In April Fergus Walsh was the first UK journalist to report from a Covid ICU. What's changed?

www.bbc.co.uk

As it talks about how things have changed from being in hospital with Covid-19 meaning on a ventilator for most to it being the exception.

When I first reported from a Covid intensive care unit in April, I was left haunted by what I'd seen. All but one patient had been on a ventilator, in a medically induced coma. It was eerily quiet, just the rhythmical sound of machines pumping air into lungs. The medical teams were at a loss to know how best to treat a savage condition which was ravaging victims' lungs and other organs. Lives hung in the balance, often for weeks on end. In early April, two out of three ventilated patients did not survive. Today, in this intensive care unit (ICU) at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, only one of the five patients is on a ventilator. The others are sitting up, engaging with the nurses, reading or watching TV.

As such, that time will likely mean that fewer people will die from it. Chances are another few months and things will improve further. Whilst a vaccine may or may not work, the more time that passes the more we'll know and therefore the more likely that we'll have better treatments even if we don't have a cure.

That's the goal of lockdowns and masks, not to wipe it out, rather just to keep the rate a bit lower and keep the numbers in hospital at a manageable level (as better treatments may also mean less time in hospital).

The problem with such a goal is that it's easy to say that it's not working as cases continue to go up or to say that we need to be harsher as cases are going up.

The reality is that whilst in some areas there's a case for being a bit harsher, to try and get the rate in that area down a bit more, what we're doing now (as long as we don't give up) is probably about right.

The economy in most areas in tier 1 & 2 is doing OK (obviously not as good as it would be with no restrictions but certainly not as dire as in June) whilst the cost of supporting those areas in tier 3 will be a lot less than it was earlier in the year.

If we have to, when in certain circumstances, wear a mask which may provide some limited protection (as long as done correctly) and we have to be more careful about hand washing and limit the numbers of people we interact with (even those who thrive on face to face contact could cope for a while limiting it to the same 15 people, or at least no more than 15 people in any 3 week period, and then phone and virtual contact for everyone else) especially limiting the numbers of different people we go to the pub with (i.e. you can go to the pub, but just don't go with 6, then later that day fo go with a different 6, and so on until you've gone with 20, 30 or 40 different people in the last week or two), but it gives us a bit more time to find treatments, or even a cure. Then I think that it's worth trying.

The one thing that's not worth doing is saying "what's it matter everyone is going to get it anyway" and letting the rates of infection sky rocket. As all that's going to do is give strength to the argument that we need to have a March type lockdown, as the number of cases did fall (and I suspect that few would like that to happen again).

 

[SJN]

Don't suppose you can remember which programme this was on SJN? I'd be interested to see (and share!) it.

It was on the new BBC1 morning programme at 9.15 on Monday. Can’t remember what it’s called.

 

[DB]

The one thing that's not worth doing is saying "what's it matter everyone is going to get it anyway" and letting the rates of infection sky rocket. As all that's going to do is give strength to the argument that we need to have a March type lockdown, as the number of cases did fall (and I suspect that few would like that to happen again).

But to repeat this again, we don't actually know what impact the March lockdown had, as it came at the time of year when respiratory infection cases would have been falling anyway.

 

[35B]

In France children aged six and over now have to wear face masks in the classroom, previously it was children over 11.

France has made masks compulsory in nearly every situation. So if they stop the spread why are they entering into a month long lockdown?

So, to pose the counter factual, what would the spread have been without masks? The argument that masks have been proven pointless because the virus has spread anyway is only valid if you base it on masks being a full preventative measure. That’s never seriously been argued, and to use it as the basis for an argument against mask wearing is a straw man argument.

 

[DB]

So, to pose the counter factual, what would the spread have been without masks? The argument that masks have been proven pointless because the virus has spread anyway is only valid if you base it on masks being a full preventative measure. That’s never seriously been argued, and to use it as the basis for an argument against mask wearing is a straw man argument.

It isn't a 'straw man' argument at all because if masks had any noticeable effect this would have been visible in the trajectories of infection graphs - and there has been no visible impact anywhere, despite the number of countries which have mandated them.

It would also be expected that countries with the strictest mask mandates would be less badly affected than those without or with less draconian ones - which again does not seem to have happened.

The government likes to talk about 'following the science' but if they were actually doing that then they would have dropped the mask mandate by now - there is absolutely no evidence that it's making any difference, and in any scientific subject a complete lack of evidence that something works normally leads to an assumption that it doesn't work.

 

[Bantamzen]

So, to pose the counter factual, what would the spread have been without masks? The argument that masks have been proven pointless because the virus has spread anyway is only valid if you base it on masks being a full preventative measure. That’s never seriously been argued, and to use it as the basis for an argument against mask wearing is a straw man argument.

Maybe similar results? After all if the argument that masks offer little or no protection, then the result of not using them would be more or less them same.

 

[DustyBin]

Whilst I would generally think that lockdowns and masks could bring some benefits they have their problems, the biggest being that it appears that many people have no symptoms and so aren't as careful as they would have been if they thought that they had it.

The main advantage of lockdowns is that if they are done right then the amount of social interactions reduce, which should then reduce the number of cases. However rarely are they able to be as effective as those in authority would like (often due to the actions of others in authority or linked to those in authority).

As an example whilst working from home people aren't at risk of getting infected by a work colleague, who may have got it from an older child from school/college, etc. For me where the team I'm in there's 6 of us therefore WFH or in the office doesn't change that risk a lot. However there's still a whole building of other people who were could get it from if or hygiene isn't up to scratch from various surfaces which we need to interact with.

Likewise the main advantage of masks is to reduce the range of the breath of people, that generally means that people can be a bit closer than they otherwise could for the same level of risk. However, there's too many who think that masks give protection and so significantly reduce distances and increase time, thus putting them at a much higher risk than they would have otherwise been at.

That's before you consider (and I've no reason to doubt the source of this) that some uni students are having Covid-19 parties. Which is fine if they don't interact with anyone else for 10 days after, the problem is that I suspect that they are carrying on as normal.

Whilst such parties do sound reckless, there could be some logic in it (assuming you get immunity) in that as long as they get it 3 weeks before going home they are then not going to be able to spread it about. As once we get to circa 60% having had it then the risk of spread starts to fall significantly as the number of people who haven't had it who come in contact with someone with it starts to fall (if none has had it everyone you meet could get it from you, whilst it might be that nearly everyone you meet will have had it once 60% of people have had it, that means that you may not infect anyone else and so your R value is much lower).

Given the rate of spread in the urban centres chances are that they'll get to 60% rather rapidly, from 20 cases increasing at at a rate of 1.2 per week you get to 5,700 cases a week after 26 weeks, the last 7 weeks of that would be about 25,000 cases, go forward another 7 weeks and you're probably looking at close to the 60% rate even allowing for a slight slowing down due to the limiting factor of people having had it already.

The problem is that uncontrolled the rate of increase is likely to be higher (remember in the summer rates were 0.9-1.2 whilst now they're closer to 1.4-1.7) there's the potential that without restrictions those rates would be higher still.

Whilst many state the first lockdown didn't stop the virus (which is true) and therefore it was pointless (which I'll argue it wasn't), by buying ourselves time we've got treatments which improve the outcomes.

I know that some don't like the way that the BBC had been reporting this, but this article is quite interesting:

Covid: Back to intensive care, where I notice one major change

In April Fergus Walsh was the first UK journalist to report from a Covid ICU. What's changed?

www.bbc.co.uk

As it talks about how things have changed from being in hospital with Covid-19 meaning on a ventilator for most to it being the exception.



As such, that time will likely mean that fewer people will die from it. Chances are another few months and things will improve further. Whilst a vaccine may or may not work, the more time that passes the more we'll know and therefore the more likely that we'll have better treatments even if we don't have a cure.

That's the goal of lockdowns and masks, not to wipe it out, rather just to keep the rate a bit lower and keep the numbers in hospital at a manageable level (as better treatments may also mean less time in hospital).

The problem with such a goal is that it's easy to say that it's not working as cases continue to go up or to say that we need to be harsher as cases are going up.

The reality is that whilst in some areas there's a case for being a bit harsher, to try and get the rate in that area down a bit more, what we're doing now (as long as we don't give up) is probably about right.

The economy in most areas in tier 1 & 2 is doing OK (obviously not as good as it would be with no restrictions but certainly not as dire as in June) whilst the cost of supporting those areas in tier 3 will be a lot less than it was earlier in the year.

If we have to, when in certain circumstances, wear a mask which may provide some limited protection (as long as done correctly) and we have to be more careful about hand washing and limit the numbers of people we interact with (even those who thrive on face to face contact could cope for a while limiting it to the same 15 people, or at least no more than 15 people in any 3 week period, and then phone and virtual contact for everyone else) especially limiting the numbers of different people we go to the pub with (i.e. you can go to the pub, but just don't go with 6, then later that day fo go with a different 6, and so on until you've gone with 20, 30 or 40 different people in the last week or two), but it gives us a bit more time to find treatments, or even a cure. Then I think that it's worth trying.

The one thing that's not worth doing is saying "what's it matter everyone is going to get it anyway" and letting the rates of infection sky rocket. As all that's going to do is give strength to the argument that we need to have a March type lockdown, as the number of cases did fall (and I suspect that few would like that to happen again).

I appreciate the amount of thought (and time!) you’ve put into this post, however three things jump out at me. Firstly, lockdowns and restrictions have unintended consequences. At present none of this seems to matter, it’s ‘beat COVID at any cost’ which is an extremely dangerous approach. Secondly, the economy is not “doing ok” in any area, by any stretch of the imagination and it’s only going to get worse. Thirdly, we can’t gamble on a vaccine, we simply don’t have “a bit more time” to buy. Unless there is a guarantee that a very effective vaccine will be widely available by Christmas, which of course there isn’t, we need to pursue an alternative strategy. There are alternatives, nobody likes to talk about them though (possibly because they expose the mistakes and miscalculations made by the government and their advisors).

The observation regarding ventilators is an interesting one. I’ve been told by a medical professional first hand that the widespread use of ventilators was a mistake, albeit a genuine one, which implies people died as a result. I’m reluctant to point the finger over this particular issue as nobody really knew what to do for the best at the time. It seemed that Italy followed China and we followed Italy (as did the rest of Europe), much like the COVID response in general.

 

[greyman42]

There was an article on one of the news channels this morning about all but the best medical grade masks being ineffective regarding viruses. Can anyone add to this?
The article got about 20 seconds air time.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

S4-S6 pupils will be required to wear face coverings in classrooms from Monday, in Scottish level 3 and 4 areas.

Senior pupils and their teachers to wear face masks in Dundee classrooms

Senior pupils and their teachers in Dundee schools will have to wear face coverings in class from Monday. New rules issued by the Scottish Government

www.thecourier.co.uk

New rules issued by the Scottish Government extend the use of face masks in schools.

In level three and four tiers – which includes the Dundee City Council area – pupils and their teachers in S4 to S6 will have to wear face coverings in classrooms as well as in corridors and other communal areas.

Parents of children at the highest clinical risk level in those areas are also advised to seek advice on whether they should attend school, with similar advice for staff where appropriate protection was not in place.

 

[Scotrail12]

Oh FGS - They don't work! Some piece of cloth worn for several days in a row is unhygienic and will NOT protect anyone.

Let kids have their blimming education. And how are people supposed to communicate in a classroom with face nappies? Kids need visual cues which are unavailable with no face.

 

[Richard Scott]

Let kids have their blimming education. And how are people supposed to communicate in a classroom with face nappies? Kids need visual cues which are unavailable with no face.

Agree, teacher also needs visual clue from the kids too, not there if face covering worn. How many other respiratory problems are we going to end up with due to all this nonsense?

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

There appears to be considerable backlash on Twitter and Facebook, which is reassuring.

 

[Huntergreed]

There appears to be considerable backlash on Twitter and Facebook, which is reassuring.

There needs to be a very well-signed petition.

 

[Skimpot flyer]

There was an article on one of the news channels this morning about all but the best medical grade masks being ineffective regarding viruses. Can anyone add to this?
The article got about 20 seconds air time.

Sky have this article

Coronavirus: Lab tests show there's a massive difference in the effectiveness of the best and worst face masks

Which? tested 15 reusable face coverings, discovering that the worst allowed 93% of potentially harmful particles to escape.

news.sky.com

While some face masks were able to block more than 99% of potentially harmful bacteria from penetrating the mask's material, the worst allowed 93% of these particles to escape

(my bold)

incidentally, I was passing through King’s Cross last night, wearing a lanyard outside my winter jacket. Three BTP were strolling around, heading past me. One still asked me ‘Excuse me, sir, do you have a face mask?’ !!!
I just tugged on the lanyard, roiled my eyes and kept on walking. Some people are just thriving on the authoritarian powers they currently have

 

[The Ham]

But to repeat this again, we don't actually know what impact the March lockdown had, as it came at the time of year when respiratory infection cases would have been falling anyway.

Whilst there would be an element of decreasing cases, one thing that I do know, because of lockdown I didn't interact with people who had Covid symptoms (at the time there was no testing) in a setting where there was have been a lot of other people who would have also interacted with them.

With lockdown that meant that I was at zero risk of infection from those people, without it my risk of being infected was higher. What we don't know is if I would or would not have caught it from them, but with lockdown I definitely didn't.

Now whilst that isn't proof that lockdowns work, it's an example which needs to be explained away by those who say that cases would start to fall anyway naturally. Can you do so?

The other problem with such an argument is that in the USA cases didn't fall to a low point in the summer, if anything whilst it fell away to May there was a much larger spike at the beginning of July before falling to September and then rising again to October. When I say fall the numbers are still quite a lot higher than we saw (May saw lows of circa 20,000 before July saw figures of 50,000 to 75,000).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Oct 2020 ==

Sky have this article

Coronavirus: Lab tests show there's a massive difference in the effectiveness of the best and worst face masks

Which? tested 15 reusable face coverings, discovering that the worst allowed 93% of potentially harmful particles to escape.

news.sky.com

(my bold)

incidentally, I was passing through King’s Cross last night, wearing a lanyard outside my winter jacket. Three BTP were strolling around, heading past me. One still asked me ‘Excuse me, sir, do you have a face mask?’ !!!
I just tugged on the lanyard, roiled my eyes and kept on walking. Some people are just thriving on the authoritarian powers they currently have

Again that's missing the point that face coverings are designed to limit the range not limit the amount of air which passes from the person.

 

[kristiang85]

The other problem with such an argument is that in the USA cases didn't fall to a low point in the summer, if anything whilst it fell away to May there was a much larger spike at the beginning of July before falling to September and then rising again to October. When I say fall the numbers are still quite a lot higher than we saw (May saw lows of circa 20,000 before July saw figures of 50,000 to 75,000).

The US needs to be look at individual state level, rather than the country as a whole, given the raft of different approaches.

 

[The Ham]

I appreciate the amount of thought (and time!) you’ve put into this post, however three things jump out at me. Firstly, lockdowns and restrictions have unintended consequences. At present none of this seems to matter, it’s ‘beat COVID at any cost’ which is an extremely dangerous approach. Secondly, the economy is not “doing ok” in any area, by any stretch of the imagination and it’s only going to get worse. Thirdly, we can’t gamble on a vaccine, we simply don’t have “a bit more time” to buy. Unless there is a guarantee that a very effective vaccine will be widely available by Christmas, which of course there isn’t, we need to pursue an alternative strategy. There are alternatives, nobody likes to talk about them though (possibly because they expose the mistakes and miscalculations made by the government and their advisors).

The observation regarding ventilators is an interesting one. I’ve been told by a medical professional first hand that the widespread use of ventilators was a mistake, albeit a genuine one, which implies people died as a result. I’m reluctant to point the finger over this particular issue as nobody really knew what to do for the best at the time. It seemed that Italy followed China and we followed Italy (as did the rest of Europe), much like the COVID response in general.

On your first point, I didn't say that we should be in lockdown, rather that is they are done correctly they can reduce the speed of the spread of the virus.

Also I'm aware that they have consequences, however likewise so does not doing anything. If we've got the choice of doing some fairly mundane things (as listed at the end of my post) which allows us a near normal way of life (if limited in the number of people we interact with) then that's better than lockdown or doing nothing.

On your second point, the point was not comparing the economy to normal times, but rather citing that is we can keep places in tier 1 or maybe 2 then things aren't going to get as bad as they were. As many businesses can run fairly normally and could likely keep operating until we have better treatments and the economy returns to a more normal setting. Whilst that's going to mean job losses and some businesses closing that's again much lower than we'd have seen (or would see if we were to return to one) under the March lockdown. For instance the company I was working for furloughed significant numbers of their staff, but now it's taking about the possibility of taking on more staff.

I specifically didn't say that we'd have a vaccine, I was saying that more time has brought us better treatments (i.e. ways of dealing with the virus in those who have got it) and better understanding (as highlighted by your contact over the ventilators). With buying more time (i.e. following the guidance which might reduce infection rates, but in any event unlikely to make the rates worse) likely to improve treatments further in the future.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Oct 2020 ==

The US needs to be look at individual state level, rather than the country as a whole, given the raft of different approaches.

Generally I'd agree that it should often be state by state, but in the context of summer = low cases the national figures show that isn't the case; as the whole country is in summer during July, even Alaska yet there were a lot of cases at that time.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

S4-S6 pupils will be required to wear face coverings in classrooms from Monday, in Scottish level 3 and 4 areas.

Senior pupils and their teachers to wear face masks in Dundee classrooms

Senior pupils and their teachers in Dundee schools will have to wear face coverings in class from Monday. New rules issued by the Scottish Government

www.thecourier.co.uk

Apologies for quoting my own post, but just to add to this, one Dundee school has made it mandatory for all pupils of all ages, and staff to wear face coverings.

https://twitter.com/Grove_Academy/status/1322234315124678661?s=20

We are now being asked to wear face coverings in classrooms. This will take effect from Monday 2nd November and at Grove Academy will apply to every pupil (S1-6) and member of staff.

I suppose this makes more sense than the "half and half" approach adopted by ScotGov, but regardless it should not be mandatory in the first place.

 

[Ascotroyal]

Don't know if it is just round my way but in this past week on the trains iv seen a lot more arguments between people wearing a mask and those who are not. Had to break up one mask incident that was going to end up with one person been assulted if i hadnt stepped in.

This whole mask wearing/not wearing seems to have brought out the worst in some people.

 

[RailExplorer]

I’ve been verbally abused several times now by “concerned citizens” because I don’t wear a mask, the latest happened on TfL transport whilst wearing a TfL uniform. I had two badges on my jacket stating I am exempt and a lanyard (all fully on display) yet I still got a torrent of abuse and told that I am the cause of all the problems.

In this example I was peacefully minding my own business, not breathing over anyone as I was playing on my phone and looking down (probably reading this forum) The person who verbally abused me sat down after me, and actually took his mask off to have a go at me and now we were facing each other (instead of both facing forwards) and way less than 1 meter apart.

 

[bramling]

I’ve been verbally abused several times now by “concerned citizens” because I don’t wear a mask, the latest happened on TfL transport whilst wearing a TfL uniform. I had two badges on my jacket stating I am exempt and a lanyard (all fully on display) yet I still got a torrent of abuse and told that I am the cause of all the problems.

The irony is how many of the “concerned citizens” chose not to cancel a skiing holiday to Italy back in February or March?

Certainly a few such people on my local Facebook group fall into that exact category.

Anything directed towards myself whilst in my workplace will not be received well. It will be straight off the premises, simple as that. Anyone not happy can put themselves back on (voluntary) lockdown AFAIAC.

 

[Ianno87]

Cost implication in all this too, i am guessing people already struggling to pay their bills and food don't have a lot to spare for masks.

Doesn't need to be a mask. Can be a scarf, bandana etc. Baffles me why people are spending a fortune on disposible masks when it is not necessary.

 

[bramling]

Doesn't need to be a mask. Can be a scarf, bandana etc. Baffles me why people are spending a fortune on disposible masks when it is not necessary.

Underpants would do too, which just shows how particularly stupid this law is.