Do you still see young people wearing MASKS in your area?
 

and do you know why?

https://static.standard.co.uk/2021/0...%3A645%2Csmart

A few people are still wearing masks
Some hospital’s and doctors surgeries still want you to wear a mask while on their site

I don't see many, just a few older people.

Ocasionally ..usually at the supermarket or waiting at a bus stop

Occasionally. Unless they're "visibly disabled" in some way I assume they might be positive, so stick to a distance :laugh:

Do you recall when surgeries had a sign on the windows "Please do not enter here if you are ill" :laugh:

Not really, only in medical places like hospitals or Doctor surgeries and that's because you have to still wear them there

Not really. If you know that YOU have Covid and need to go out and about, you should really wear one as a courtesy. At this point we know it doesn't stop transmission entirely and they don't do much at all to stop you getting it (N95's actually DO help though), but they do reduce your chances of infecting others if you're actively coughing/sneezing. Of course the best answer is still just to stay at home if you're ill.

and it also gives a visual indicator for others to keep their distance, which is why I avoid the masked :laugh:

Cochrane Reviews have become the international gold standard of evidence for medical practice. Cochrane Reviews have been tracking face masks since 2007, with updates in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2020. They found only a few, small, Random Control Trials and the evidence base was rated as low quality. Nevertheless, it suggested little or no benefit from masks. The 2020 review repeated earlier conclusions that it was ‘uncertain’ whether community use of cloth or surgical face masks slowed the spread of respiratory viruses.

A further updated Review has just been published, after the usual thorough peer review. More and larger RCTs are now available. The quality of evidence has been upgraded from low to moderate. The Review strengthens its conclusion to saying there is ‘probably little to no benefit’ from the use of cloth or surgical face masks in the community. It also considered N95/FFP2 masks. The evidence was weaker but suggested that these made little or no difference.

Mask mandates were never evidence-based policy. They simply triggered a search for policy-based evidence. My mask never protected you and yours certainly did not protect me.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/do-face-masks-work/

"and do you know why?"




Yes LT,
that Lady goes home to Old Gran
she is protecting her old gran.


Nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes in the tube or bus.
Everyone is wearing one at hospitals or GPs.

We’re in Gtr Manchester and I’ve recently noticed that the mobile nurses and the pharmacy delivery guys are all wearing masks .. even when they drive off !


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they dont protect at all, that is the scientific findings

Some RCT's with moderate quality is quite a long way from conclusive. I don't think they should be mandatory, though to say it was a bad policy at the time is hindsight-based - it was the right decision based on the information available at the time.

Look LT
let her buy the shopping
and on
going home, Gran is happy
she had a mask on.


Not a problem.

What’s the issue? Why are you triggered by a face mask?

:nono:

Gran needs to start reading the peer reviewed studies and stop watching Loose woman and reading her Cosy Feet catalogue for extra wide slippers

Indeed. Loosely, I can understand why people might be against mandatory mask policies at this point... but why would anyone care about a few random strangers choosing to wear one :think:.

It's up to people if they want to wear one still :shrug:.
East Asian people were wearing them in the UK .....long before COVID even existed ,but I think that was based on their culture and air pollution.

yes certainly that was the case in Japan

It's considered impolite in a lot of Japan to not wear a mask if you even have a cold. I thought it might be more normalised here after Covid but evidence suggests not!

i know it gives me confidence in a crowded place if i see people masked up. The one thing i know about science and was shown multiple times over the course of the pandemic is that scientific opinion can change with the wind

Cochrane Reviews have been tracking face masks since 2007, with updates in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2020.

The only thing that could change would be the type of mask because nowt else will including the size of virus particles and the fluidity of air

Proper N95 use does reduce transmission in clinical settings though, these studies are all of public settings, so it's not that masks make zero difference at all just negligible the way they're being used. So technically... If everyone started using the best masks and fitting them properly, it would probably help.

Your chances of catching Covid at a random public place are tiny though. It's usually group gatherings, workplaces, schools etc.

I still wear mine.

Yes too, I've noticed more around lately.
On both young and older people.

Particularly in indoor settings.

How young is “young”?

under 30

I'm surprised actually how easily people settled back into pre-covid ways. I thought things like widespread mask wearing, avoiding shaking hands, people wary of mass events etc. might become the new normal

From my experience it's mainly just elderly people who do still wear masks. It's funny to think what a flashpoint it was during covid though. I remember at the start hardly anyone was wearing them, then almost everyone agreed with the compulsory mask policy and people who didn't wear one were looked down upon. Like I'm fairly sure you were quite a big advocate of mask wearing during the lockdowns LT. Most people were in fairness but now within two years they've come to be thought of as silly pointless things

If people want to wear masks, they will?

Yes, I think it was a sort of "we are all in this together" symbol and people felt i am doing my but but the reality of an airborne virus is that as a method of stopping the spread its pretty pointless and the on going science supports this

I remember thinking when wearing a mask and passing a random lady and immediately being able to smell her perfume that they aint stopping a virus lol

Yeah staff and pupils had to wear masks in and around school and you could still smell the canteen food and toast in the staffrooms ..


I recall a microbiologist on the telly saying that the main thing was hygiene ( hands / surfaces ) and he said wearing those disposable masks was the equivalent of closing the farm gates to try and keep the ANTS out ..


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Yes, two girls walk separately past my front window every day, wearing masks.

Both aged about 20-25.

I still wear a mask more times than not but that’s just me. But I’d hardly call them silly, pointless things.

Doesn’t it depend on the type / quality ?


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People seem to forget that there are a lot of vulnerable people in the country that are scared stiff of getting covid. If putting on a mask gives them the courage to step out and about, i'm all for it

When the mask mandate first came in they still weren't sure if it was airborne or more likely to be spread by droplets.

Also... Still being able to smell smells is really not how it works at all. For example, HEPA air filtration -does-effectively remove virus particles (including Covid) from air but will do nothing to remove smell. Airborne Virus particles are MUCH bigger than "smell particles" and sense of smell is ridiculously sensitive (even for humans) so only a tiny number of molecules need to get through for you to smell something. You need to get a decent "dose" of a virus to catch it. You can actually breathe in a fair amount of Covid virus particles without getting Covid unless you have a compromised immune system.

Masks are definitely effective against tonnes of airborne viruses if worn properly, it just took them a while to discover that they're not with Covid. Different viruses are different "sizes".

Also... Most people don't wear masks properly and they're not properly fitted. If there are gaps at the sides or around the nose then it's obviously pretty pointless... And from what I remember, most peoples were barely on their face :joker:.

Under the nose wearers were the worst

I saw an ortho doctor at the hospital who had it loosely flapping around his face like barely touching his top lip. I found it really irritating.

Not even in an "Oh no, Covid" way - it was just visually infuriating. Either have a mask on, or don't! I would have rather he just took the thing off completely. Watching it flap around on his chin for 15 minutes was torture.

Not really. Masks are masks.

I’m just a cautious and fairly reserved sort of person so sometimes masks set up an extra boundary that makes it clear that unless you initiate the conversation you’re not really out here for conversations with random strangers and just want to be about your business and mean it. Coupled with the fact that Covid’s still out there and I work with vulnerable people at the moment it just makes sense to wear one (and they just happen to be the standard blue ones you see in ozzies). Beyond that I literally couldn’t care less about the “type/quality.” It don’t exactly matter, does it?