Masks to be worn by everyone in public...?

[papasmurf]

I personally don't want really to have to wear a mask or face covering.

Stay at home then.

[Left of Centre]

Strange how masks and face coverings will be compulsory in English shops on July 24. Doesn't make sense that they've waited four months of lockdown to bring this in when the virus is showing signs of fading away.
Mixed messages from the government who at the start of the crisis told us they didn't make much difference and now they're important. Then you have Michael Gove going on Andrew Marr and saying they shouldn't be compulsory and nor will you have to wear them in pubs and restaurants.
The whole thing is riddled with contradictions. Government also think it will give people confidence to shop. I actually think it will put some people off and could be the final nail in the coffin for the high street. Then you have the question of how these fines will be enforced as it will be left to police and not shop workers to enforce. The whole idea of fines is draconian in itself and I think people should have a choice. I personally don't want to have to wear a mask or face covering.

[papasmurf]

Strange you'd not indicated before that with your other ailments and infirmities you were also afflicted with short arm syndrome...

I am merely commenting a pitchfork is not two metres long, and a pike between 3 metres and six metres long is too clumsy.

[patman post]

Unfortunately a pitchfork is not two metres long.

Strange you'd not indicated before that with your other ailments and infirmities you were also afflicted with short arm syndrome...

[papasmurf]

Until this thing is gone there is a risk Smurf. Wearing any mask helps reduce that risk, wearing a well designed mask properly , adds to the reduction. But a risk remains . It's going to remain personal risk assessment for all of us oldies, at all times . Do what suits you and the missus. Stay safe.

Unfortunately a pitchfork is not two metres long.

[Good old]

Are you not shielding, therefore shouldn't be out anyway?

I thought advice was to wear a face covering, ideally a mask, and that they did not have to be medical grade, just a covering. These can therefore be purchased anywhere.

I am shielding however I will have to break out of "house arrest," for essential reasons as time passes, and the correct grade of face mask is cheaper than dying. (Buy they appear to be bulk purchase only from reliable suppliers.)

Until this thing is gone there is a risk Smurf. Wearing any mask helps reduce that risk, wearing a well designed mask properly , adds to the reduction. But a risk remains . It's going to remain personal risk assessment for all of us oldies, at all times . Do what suits you and the missus. Stay safe.

[papasmurf]

Are you not shielding, therefore shouldn't be out anyway?

I thought advice was to wear a face covering, ideally a mask, and that they did not have to be medical grade, just a covering. These can therefore be purchased anywhere.

I am shielding however I will have to break out of "house arrest," for essential reasons as time passes, and the correct grade of face mask is cheaper than dying. (Buy they appear to be bulk purchase only from reliable suppliers.)

[papasmurf]

Seems to me a wonder the current UK Covid death toll isn't treble the current estimates with all the cantankerous contrarianism around...

Quite, but whatever we get told, if a mask won't stop a virus of the size of Covid-19  in my opinion it is useless, and masks of that specification are expensive. (If I have to I wear a face shield, the virus can't penetrate that.)
However I am shielding until my GP tells me otherwise. I have two trips out I have to do at the end of July, but they don't require me to get anywhere near anyone else.
I also am seriously considering buying  Porton type of suit.
My wife and I are both not going off of our property for the next few days due to madding crowd of potential plague carriers who have arrived from out of the County.

[patman post]

Masks while in shops and on public transport are now mandatory in Scotland. I have no issue wearing one, and in fact am doing so when necessary. Scientific evidence may not be fully clear but in my book IF there is even a small chance that a mask will prevent me getting covid, wear one I will.  We may all look stupid on 6 months if it's proved it made no difference, but still I'd rather err on the side of caution.

Seems a totally sensible attitude.

I feel sorry for those who lip read though.

How do those deaf Muslim women who wear the niqab deal with the problem?
However, for those who aren't deaf there's ready-made virus protection:
NIQAB MUSLIM HIJAB THREE 3 LAYER ISLAMIC Face Cover Veil Burqa Saudi Burka Nikab
https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/302580032972?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-153316-527457-8&mkcid=2&itemid=302580032972&targetid=4585032211933600&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=&poi=&campaignid=398226948&mkgroupid=1302921513642151&rlsatarget=pla-4585032211933600&abcId=2145997&merchantid=87779&msclkid=112d1407ea121365b7ee4b0e49fddc9a

Strangely, this comes from China...

[Bright Young Thing]

My problem is the high cost of masks that are any use.

Are you not shielding, therefore shouldn't be out anyway?

I thought advice was to wear a face covering, ideally a mask, and that they did not have to be medical grade, just a covering. These can therefore be purchased anywhere.

[patman post]

My problem is the high cost of masks that are any use.

Cloth face coverings, even homemade masks made of the correct material, are effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19 - for the wearer and those around them - according to a new study from Oxford's Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-07-08-oxford-covid-19-study-face-masks-and-coverings-work-act-now

Seems to me a wonder the current UK Covid death toll isn't treble the current estimates with all the cantankerous contrarianism around...

[Bright Young Thing]

Masks while in shops and on public transport are now mandatory in Scotland. I have no issue wearing one, and in fact am doing so when necessary. Scientific evidence may not be fully clear but in my book IF there is even a small chance that a mask will prevent me getting covid, wear one I will.  We may all look stupid on 6 months if it's proved it made no difference, but still I'd rather err on the side of caution.

I feel sorry for those who lip read though.

[Good old]

All of this controversy only shows how political so called scientific opinion is. Who would have thought a virus particle  as small as Covid , would remain airborne for far more than a few seconds.?
One could always make an argument as to how masks are used ,and how to reduce their effectiveness. 
The argument they don't help in any way , was only ever made to suit  the politics of that moment. Masks always had the potential to help lower the impact of Covid , as with all transmissible infections that in the main transmit  via mouth and nose.

OK time for me to take off my "Porton Suit" for a moment so i can be heard clearly...

A couple of things: A couple of points to be made, and a few to be shot dowen.

First. I have indeed worn wore a mask, and more, I have worn a full "Porton Down" as some call it here Nuclear Biological and Chemical Warfare / Biohazard Protective suit, with independent (scuba-like) life support providing me with the capacity to operate in an environment hazardous to life.  But that was more to stop the isolated animal cells I was culturing (which i had extracted from live animal organs and cultured in a rig akin to, and using mechanics similar to what most here might visualise as being used in sci-fi film hydroponics labs) from being exposed to ME.

So I feel I have at least a modicum of experience on these subjects ...

First and foremost, the virus particle does not travel in isolation.  It travels in a droplet breathed, sneezed etc from another. A mask that covers your mouth and nose which has a gas permeable layer beneath an outer covering **WILL** capture a lot of moisture from the inhaled air before you inhale it, and thus reduce your inhaled droplet load. So can we please pack in the stuff about the masks not stopping the individual virus particles. They don't. The can't. But that isn't what they are designed to do.


Second, if you catch and die as a result of catching COVID 19 from a single virus particle then man oh man you are ONE UNLUCKY BASTARD. I'm sure there is one such person in the ground right now, but they are the equivalent of the poor sod who gets hung over from a sniff of the hops brewing in a brewery three miles down wind. The whole point about a viral attack is a whole bloody army of the bastards hit you. And the mask will reduce the number that get through and enhance your chance of exterminating the ones that get through before they exterminate you. That is. after all, what the game is about.

BUT as i posted on a local community facebook group, where the question was asked whether one should be forced to wear mask in the shops, the whole problem revolves around four things.  Proximity of a source, Directionality of Travel, Exposure Time and Cross Contamination.

I wore a mask when i was working with the cells i had cultured, but as I explained, that was more to protect the cells in my cultures from anything on me than to protect me from what i was culturing.

I do not plan on spending three hours sitting six inches from your face, breathing all over you, while i study the pores on your nose.

But when analysing the degree to which liver cells had metabolised the radioactive sugar compounds i had introduced into their culture medium, I spent a whole day sitting inches from open glass vessels containing various cultures, staring down a microscope at some i had extracted, pipetting others to meet a gruesome end in the chromatography machine ....

In a shop, unless I am forced to stand within a very small distance indeed of you and face to face, and for a rather prolonged period of time, I personally do not see there is any significant point in being forced to wear a mask, and particularly one that is not a one time disposable one, because - and here is the fourth point, do you know how to put them on and take them off. There is a splendid internet meme of some prize T@@@ removing the latex gloves he's worn to handle his shopping trolley by gripping the end on his hand in his teeth...... words really do f**king fail me.

I put it to you that a population forced to wear masks all the time will either wear them improperly (like the twats i saw yesterday who left their noses uncovered) or will do stupid shit l;ike contaminate their hands with whatever might be on the front outer edge of the mask as they take it off, particularly if on taking it off they stick it in their pocket and then put it back on....

And so on.

SO in summary.

I'm off to Lidl in a minute to get some barbecue marinated diced chicken breast kebabs. I am about twenty times more likely to die of something left on them the cooking does not exterminate than a COVID 19 dose from anyone in the shop. So stuff the mask.

However, I will be needing to book myself an eye test soon. And a haircut. And I will probably take a disposable mask to both, keep in on throughout, and bin it, removing it the same way my microbiology professor taught me to remove the ones i wore in his lab 40 years ago.

I shall be enjoying a pint in a beer garden sometime this month. I won't be wearing mask then, because taking it off to drink the beer and putting it somewhere to don it again after is just bloody stupid from the point of view of cross contaminating my hands, and other surfaces...

The value of wearing a mask ,is subject to numerous caveats , but the fact remains. No mask is ,no gain. Mask worn properly in right environment  some gain. Science is now saying they are seeing one more reason to wear a mask.

[johnofgwent]

All of this controversy only shows how political so called scientific opinion is. Who would have thought a virus particle  as small as Covid , would remain airborne for far more than a few seconds.?
One could always make an argument as to how masks are used ,and how to reduce their effectiveness. 
The argument they don't help in any way , was only ever made to suit  the politics of that moment. Masks always had the potential to help lower the impact of Covid , as with all transmissible infections that in the main transmit  via mouth and nose.

OK time for me to take off my "Porton Suit" for a moment so i can be heard clearly...

A couple of things: A couple of points to be made, and a few to be shot dowen.

First. I have indeed worn wore a mask, and more, I have worn a full "Porton Down" as some call it here Nuclear Biological and Chemical Warfare / Biohazard Protective suit, with independent (scuba-like) life support providing me with the capacity to operate in an environment hazardous to life.  But that was more to stop the isolated animal cells I was culturing (which i had extracted from live animal organs and cultured in a rig akin to, and using mechanics similar to what most here might visualise as being used in sci-fi film hydroponics labs) from being exposed to ME.

So I feel I have at least a modicum of experience on these subjects ...

First and foremost, the virus particle does not travel in isolation.  It travels in a droplet breathed, sneezed etc from another. A mask that covers your mouth and nose which has a gas permeable layer beneath an outer covering **WILL** capture a lot of moisture from the inhaled air before you inhale it, and thus reduce your inhaled droplet load. So can we please pack in the stuff about the masks not stopping the individual virus particles. They don't. The can't. But that isn't what they are designed to do.


Second, if you catch and die as a result of catching COVID 19 from a single virus particle then man oh man you are ONE UNLUCKY BASTARD. I'm sure there is one such person in the ground right now, but they are the equivalent of the poor sod who gets hung over from a sniff of the hops brewing in a brewery three miles down wind. The whole point about a viral attack is a whole bloody army of the bastards hit you. And the mask will reduce the number that get through and enhance your chance of exterminating the ones that get through before they exterminate you. That is. after all, what the game is about.

BUT as i posted on a local community facebook group, where the question was asked whether one should be forced to wear mask in the shops, the whole problem revolves around four things.  Proximity of a source, Directionality of Travel, Exposure Time and Cross Contamination.

I wore a mask when i was working with the cells i had cultured, but as I explained, that was more to protect the cells in my cultures from anything on me than to protect me from what i was culturing.

I do not plan on spending three hours sitting six inches from your face, breathing all over you, while i study the pores on your nose.

But when analysing the degree to which liver cells had metabolised the radioactive sugar compounds i had introduced into their culture medium, I spent a whole day sitting inches from open glass vessels containing various cultures, staring down a microscope at some i had extracted, pipetting others to meet a gruesome end in the chromatography machine ....

In a shop, unless I am forced to stand within a very small distance indeed of you and face to face, and for a rather prolonged period of time, I personally do not see there is any significant point in being forced to wear a mask, and particularly one that is not a one time disposable one, because - and here is the fourth point, do you know how to put them on and take them off. There is a splendid internet meme of some prize T@@@ removing the latex gloves he's worn to handle his shopping trolley by gripping the end on his hand in his teeth...... words really do f**king fail me.

I put it to you that a population forced to wear masks all the time will either wear them improperly (like the twats i saw yesterday who left their noses uncovered) or will do stupid shit l;ike contaminate their hands with whatever might be on the front outer edge of the mask as they take it off, particularly if on taking it off they stick it in their pocket and then put it back on....

And so on.

SO in summary.

I'm off to Lidl in a minute to get some barbecue marinated diced chicken breast kebabs. I am about twenty times more likely to die of something left on them the cooking does not exterminate than a COVID 19 dose from anyone in the shop. So stuff the mask.

However, I will be needing to book myself an eye test soon. And a haircut. And I will probably take a disposable mask to both, keep in on throughout, and bin it, removing it the same way my microbiology professor taught me to remove the ones i wore in his lab 40 years ago.

I shall be enjoying a pint in a beer garden sometime this month. I won't be wearing mask then, because taking it off to drink the beer and putting it somewhere to don it again after is just bloody stupid from the point of view of cross contaminating my hands, and other surfaces...

[papasmurf]

And if the heat is on ,just getting masks of any quality will become another big problem I dare say.

I have had two orders "lost in transit," both by Royal Mail.  (I got my money back.)