It's all over the TV news this morning about the surge in cases in China. It's on the BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, Sky News, even GB News. And even more annoyingly on Good Morning Britain, they've announced there is an item coming up about "Should we be wearing masks again"!!!! For goodness sake, NO NO NO we should not be wearing masks again and the vast vast majority of people have moved on from wearing those stupid pointless things! Those nonsense laws were scrapped over 11 months ago now!! Don't try to set the agenda that mandatory masks should be brought back again here in the UK!!!
The increase in cases in China is an "exit wave" for them, given that they have substantially eased their domestic restrictions.
However relatively few Chinese tourists are going to come to Europe and North America at this time of year due to the cold weather.
Therefore the "ripple effect" of the Chinese exit wave should be comparatively small, especially as much of the population has immunity from vaccination and/or prior infection, and the variant that is currently prevalent in China is already present in Europe
In the UK, the government is going to stop publishing daily figures after 6th January, so all the bedwetters will have nothing to justify their fearmongering.
As for masks, I don't think there is any point in wearing them as their protective effect, if any is minimal.
Fortunately I think the (UK) government agrees with this, although I wouldn't put it past the Scottish government to introduce mandatory masks (or "strongly recommend" them) just to be awkward.
However, it was always going to be the case that the locktivists and maskivists would lose no opportunity to keep banging on about their particular fetish, in a desperate attempt to remain relevant when the rest of the world has moved on.