It makes a nonsense of wearing a mask if it can be removed to eat or drink. Does anybody else find that ruling to be absurd? Or did I miss the agreement we signed with the virus that it stays away whilst we're eating or drinking?
Yes it is nonsense if viewed in a scientific context, but I will answer this in the mask effectiveness thread as it's more on topic there.
I was in Switzerland recently and everyone was wearing masks on trains and in shops, generally of the flimsy loose fitting ineffective kind but they are not required on station platforms and people generally took the masks off as soon as they could.
Other than masks there would be no real evidence of any Covid measures; many countries I have been to in the past year are like that. Few if any announcements, few if any signs, few if any screens. People just getting on with life, and getting close to each other.
In the UK it is rather different and I still observe some people practising social distancing and there are still various signs up at numerous places.
On the subject of masks in the UK, it was very pleasing to see the majority of passengers in my carriage on the Victoria line not wearing them, this was around 1340 on a weekday, at a time when mask wearing on the tube is usually high.
My journey on LNER got off to a bad start when the Guard made a draconian announcement, but the Guard was not seen throughout the entire trip. No-one was sat near me in 1st but I walked through the train to reach the optimal exit at York and I observed that fewer than half the passengers were wearing masks, despite the appalling announcement. This was pleasing to see. It was not uniform though; clearly many people are looking for cues from others. For example one carriage had the majority wearing masks but the next one had the vast majority not wearing them. Another one was about 50/50 but with a transition from nearly all mask wearers to nearly all non wearers about half way down the coach.
I am on LNER again today and I am pleased to report I have not heard a single announcement about masks, which is great. I am not sure how any people near me are wearing them or not as it is a busy train so I am not going to walk down it, but I will definitely do a walkthrough on my train back this evening and report back.
The airlines generally are in a bad way and are doing anything they can to drum up custom and avoid deferrals/cancellations.
Mask-wearing is one way of keeping the bookings of cautious/scared passengers.
Mask wearing puts me off; if there is a choice of carrier or mode I will be choosing the one that does not require masks.
The first airlines to drop the requirements have a good chance of getting my custom, though I do prefer to take trains over flying where at all possible. It will be interesting to see what happens with Eurostar too.
)
(added to the taking over the world in the next 30 years)
