Arborbridge wrote:And as for anti-social types refusing to wear masks on some sort of misguided principle?
I can't help feel there's a bit of irony here.
I'm certainly vocally against mandatory mask wearing requirements and don't wear one in the supermarket, and so I guess that means I must be an "anti-social" type in your view.
But here's the irony - choosing not to wear a mask is now legally permitted, just the same as choosing to go to the opera and such like.
In the past few weeks the only thing that I've done that wouldn't have been technically permitted during the first lockdown in 2020 is go out running for 10 minutes more than the permitted 1 hour
! (Actually, strictly speaking I don't carry a watch while out running, and a few times I may have been over the requisite hour during the official lockdown). And in the past few weeks, in addition to the run, I may also have been out for a walk for around 30 minutes on the same day. All on my own, all outside and away from people.
I'm still working from home and only once visited a relation to drop something off where I briefly stood outside at the door with 2m distance between us and didn't go inside.
I haven't been to any cinema, opera, theatre or anything like that. The only place I've been to is the supermarket, late in the evening when it's largely quiet, it's a large supermarket with very good ventilation. I largely avoid aisles when there are more than one or two people in them, and generally hold my breath when quickly walking past people, and I don't linger in proximity to other people. I also still put my trolley at the side of the checkout and stand at the end like they requested you do during the lockdowns, and still use my keys to press the buttons on the card machine rather than touching them directly with my fingers. I also use hand santiser on the way in.
But no, I didn't wear a mask, so clearly in your view I'm some sort of anti-social type.
But here's the thing...
In other posts on this thread you've been happily recounting your visits to venues where the density of people is much higher than the supermarket, but let's not forget, mask wearing might help reduce transmission, but it certainly doesn't eliminate risk, by a long shot - not even risk of airbourne transmission. In my experience those wearing masks tend to do risker things that they wouldn't have done without a mask, largely negating the overall benefit in terms of covid transmission risk (my mum is a good example, a couple of months ago in the supermarket I held back to keep a distance while some other people passed, but my mum just pushed straight past them, practically brushing against them... when I caught up with her and she asked what had kept me, I explained I was courteously allowing some distance to let the people pass, to which mum replied, 'oh, I'm wearing a mask so I'm OK'.
)
Anyhow, back to my point ... I think it's probably a fairly safe bet that my weekly activity over the past few weeks has been, in terms of covid transmission risk, overall a lower risk than your activity over the past few weeks based on the information you've volunteered.
Both of us are acting legally, but for some reason you seem to have decided that my perfectly legal behaviour is not to your liking, and turn your nose down at me as being anti-social.
Yet you seem more than happy to make the most of your similarly perfectly legal behaviour of going to the opera and ballet.
I trust you used hand sanitiser? If they asked for mask wearing, I suspect they also asked you to sanitise your hands - it's just that you don't seem to have mentioned hand sanitiser even once at least on this thread. Are you not equally outraged by those who disregard premises' requests that you sanitise your hands? Some weeks I seem to be the only one stopping to use the hand sanitiser in the supermarket, everyone else just walks straight past.
Did you clean any surfaces before you touched them? Did you need to push any doors with your hands? Didn't touch your face or face mask at all while there? Touch any surfaces in the toilets (taps, stall doors, etc) or handrails around the theatres, or steady yourself by placing your hand on the backs of the seats in front as you made your way to your seat? etc.
If you're not already aware, there are evidenced cases of transmission(**) from people using seats in such venues
a couple of hours after the infected person had already vacated the seats and left the premises. So it's unlikely masks would have been particularly effective in those cases.
I suspect, the reality is that your overall behaviour over the past few weeks is probably slightly risker than mine in terms of covid transmission.
Yet you seem to have decided that my perfectly legal behaviour - that one element of choosing not to wear a face mask in a fairly empty, very big, supermarket for just approx 30 minutes once per week - is anti-social.
But your perfectly legal behaviour, I presume you think is absolutely fine and beyond reproach?
Both of us took a perfectly legal, calculated risk, exercising our personal freedom to choose for ourselves. You now look down on me for my choice of risk. You don't even seem to realise that you've just done the same - by choosing to go to the opera and ballet, when you could equally have chosen to avoid that risk and not gone. Why not buy a DVD and watch it at home? Why do you
need to actually take the risk of the social setting of the theatre? Surely being social is itself the new anti-social?
--
(**) And here's the evidence...
"
Evidence no-one expected
Investigators resorted to going through the CCTV recordings made at the church that Sunday to search for clues. And they stumbled across something completely unexpected - the woman who'd attended the later service, after the Chinese couple had left, had
sat in the seats they had used several hours earlier.
..
Somehow, despite having no symptoms and not feeling ill, the Chinese husband and wife had managed to spread the virus. Maybe they'd had it on their hands and touched the seats, maybe their breath carried the infection and it landed on a surface, it's not clear, but the implications were huge.
For Dr Lee, piecing everything together, there was only one possible explanation - that the virus was being passed by people who had it without even realising. ... "
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52840763
And to those who think their own regular PPE (face masks) are good, something else from that article to think about... I rather suspect this nurse was probably using better face masks than any of the face mask mob are using,
and I would expect they are professionally trained and experienced in how to use it properly
"Staff nurse Amelia Powell was shocked when she found out that she is asymptomatic. ... She had been feeling normal and safe behind the personal protective equipment she had to wear while caring for patients with Covid-19. But suddenly all those assumptions were undermined because, to her horror, she had tested positive."