I'm absolutely astounded!
Just seen the latest 'Google Doodle' for today and it's 'Wear a Mask - Get Vaccinated - Save Lives'
Why on earth would they feel it necessary to revive this nonsense at this particular time!
It's a political statement. Wearing a mask (any old flimsy loose fitting mask will do, this isn't about effectiveness) is symbolic of being part of a certain mindset; check out the following thread (but don't be fooled by the title; it's a lot more complex than that, as discussed in the thread):
I've noticed over the past couple of months that the wearing of face masks has become a very polarized left/right issue - almost similar to the situation in America. One only has to have a look at parliament - on the government side only a handful of MPs are masked up, whereas on the opposition...
www.railforums.co.uk
I am in France now.
Re the figures, for what it's worth, I believe the figure registered on Monday was 0, so Tuesday's must have lumped together Monday and Tuesday - therefore in fact the figures are about the same as last week. But we all know the media don't want to be bothered by minor details like that when they can post attention grabbing lone numbers.
I do agree with you though. Mask wearing here is a farce, people have grown tired of it and many have it hanging round their chin, etc. And as if, if someone is contagious, how will it help that they wear a mask for 20 seconds to enter and take their seat in a restaurant when they then sit for 2 hours at the table maskless?
According to
Worldometer the previous day's figure was 102,144. But yes, daily figures are not very reliable. If we add together all the figures for the week (January 12 - 18 inclusive), we get 2,166,034. That's approximately 4 times the UK figure for the same period!
I notice that because the tories have said you don’t have to wear a mask, #Wearamask is now the 4th highest trending topic in the UK on Twitter.
It only takes a small minority of Twitter users to start a trend. It's also not uncommon for most people to be either disagreeing with the wording of the trend, or to be simply asking why it is trending.
The cold hearted brigade on Twitter is extremely active; many of these people have cushy work from home jobs, or are retired/don't need to work, and are desperate for the epidemic to continue. The only sign for me at work that there is an epidemic in this country is the visible signs of masks; remove that and there is effectively no epidemic. The cold hearters are worried by this.
And regarding Starmer’s fence sitting ‘we must see the science’, I’m sure depending on what science you look at, the result could be anything between, yes it’ll be probably ok, to we should be in a full lockdown.
Starmer is such a fool thinking there is one science; there is no way I will vote Labour unless someone is in charge who makes it clear they do not believe in lockdowns, masks and other measures. I hate the way the Tories have acted but let's be clear: it would have been SO much worse under Labour. We must not forget that.
We should find out later today.
I am bracing for at least another 3 weeks though honestly feel 6 is more likely - I just don't see them being willing to remove all measures at once.
But yes, the whole thing is complete nonsense - I went to a gig last night (transported by my personal train service) and you have a few hundred people in a room all being happy and normal and then the music ends and the masks come out to leave the venue...I just don't get the psychology of it all.
Very sad though to see what has happened to our cities and I don't have any bright ideas for revival!
Loose fitting masks in certain settings is indeed
nothing to do with virus spread (if it was, tight fitting highly effective FFP2/3 masks would be mandated and there would be more consistency over what is required in different settings); it's actually about placating people who are scared to see people who are unmasked in close proximity to them.
Tim Spector even admitted that he thinks people should wear masks to enable people to feel "safer".
Tim Spector said:
...a lot of people will feel safer in that environment and and will travel to do things because many people are are fearful of of at the moment...
Of course those people will obviously not be at gigs, therefore a mask mandate at gigs won't make anyone feel safer in that setting. The same applies in pubs etc, of course.