I think some here have missed the point of why face masks / face coverings were introduced. An individual wearing one does slightly reduce the likelihood of catching the virus.
That is demonstrably untrue, studies such as DANMASK-19 have found no measureable effect, just like all the other studies before. The evidence is marginal even for medical professionals with N-95 respirators.
But if everyone is wearing them, then the number and distance that water droplets in your breath travel is reduced. Hence it aids, in connection with people staying sufficiently apart in reducing the ability of the virus to spread from a host and to infect another host. Then everyone is less likely to catch the virus from the air.
And yet the majority of Randomised Control Trials have found no effectiveness at preventing the spread of respiratory illness. Low quality mechanistic studies should not be relied on when their experimental premise is flawed, and most higher-quality evidence suggests to the contrary. Unlike most of the comentators here, and in the media, I actually have a Ph.D in droplet mass transfer; most of these studies failed to consier alternative suppression (anyone remember 'catch it, kill it, bin it') or where the droplets end up; unless you're right up in the face of them, then the chances are any droplets will fall harmlessly onto their clothing. Seriously, when was the last time someone ever accidentally spat in your mouth or eyes.
So this ‘thing’ about you don’t want to wear a face covering, but it’s okay for others doesn’t really work. That’s like saying, you think it’s okay for you to smoke, because you don’t care about others not having a choice of having to breathe in smoke from your cigarette.
Tell you what, maybe I’ll bring a stink bomb with me. Then let it off in a train and see how long you like sitting in a confined area with a very, very nasty smell.
I fear you do not understand the difference between gasses and droplets, I would suggest reading up on such concepts as gravity, bouyancy and diffusion. And again, given the high-quality evidence that masks do not work; your suggestion that we 'don't care about others' is disingenuous at best.
Humans are strange creatures. If the virus caused permanent disfigurement of the face and body that would put off the opposite sex, would you take it more seriously? Is the possibility of suffering long COVID or dying not enough for your brain to thin
However it does not form permanent disfigurement, please refrain from bringing baseless hypothetical situations into this for the purposes of rhetoric.
For the vast majority of people the risk of death is incredibly low, this is more so now we have incredibly effective vaccines. As for the so-called 'long covid'; for people who have been hospitalised, taking time to recover is normal. For non-hospitalised cases, I do not feel the evidence is clear cut in the majority of cases, as it if this is 'long covid' or deconditioning from being locked in our houses for months on end. Finally, for the 'unexplained' cases of random illnesses, these are in almost all cases 'incidental-omas'; things that people have noticed due to the above average prevalence of health information.
Unless we (as a country) manage to completely eliminate the COVID19 Corona virus (like New Zealand have done) there will still be a risk of catching it. Just because you have been vaccinated, it does not remove the risk entirely. It just reduces the risk.
Given that it took over 100 years to eliminate smallpox, and that for most people; this is a mild respiratory illness, it seems like the gains will be at best marginal. If you are wanting to remove risk entirely, you may as well give up now, we always live with risk. If you want to stay boarded up in your house, then I would remind you that household accidents kill over 100,000 Americans every year.
. And at the moment, the jury is still out on this.
If you have novel evidence that vaccines do not work, then present it to a journal; otherwise cease this baseless vaccine-denial.
In terms of liberty, there is no bill of rights in this country. This is a kingdom, not a republic. One guy tried travelling from one end on the country to the other end, but kept getting arrested. What, you say, did he do wrong? His wrongdoing was simple, he wanted to be naked. Rather him than me. But for social reasons, wearing clothes is the normal thing to do when in public, even though it may be warm enough that you don’t need to.
But masks are not, and have never been normal in this country; and placating your delusional sense of fear does not seem like a good reason the change that.
Hence, although I would prefer it if we did completely eliminate COVID19, I would much prefer not to wear a face covering, until then, it may become the new normal.
Even the Chris Whitty agrees that elimination would be impossible.
Next people will be complaining that they are not allowed to get on public transport with their firearm…
You actually are allowed to get on public transport with a firearm; I imagine a change would cause serious inconvenience in some of the London Target shooting clubs.
