A quick question, prior to the virus did everyone in Hong Kong wear a mask all the time, or did they wear masks only when they had symptoms of a cold or flu? Because, and correct me if I am wrong, I'm pretty certain mask wearing was not the norm, even on public transport.
No of course not, why would that even be a question ? If you did have a cough or something similar pre-Covid-19 then yes you would wear a mask, me included, we call it civic responsibility.
I'm not sure now many times people need to hear this before it sinks in, masks will NOT stop you from contracting the virus but they WILL stop you from spreading it, even China learned this. This is not andecdotal, this is fact, we have the numbers here that prove it. Some people will not believe it but I'm not going to try to convince you as I have better things to do. Wear or don't wear, up to you.
in Hong Kong, we has SARS in 2003, which did not make its way in any notable form to Britain. SARS in 2003 infected 1750 people here and 286 of those died. People in HK learned from that episode, me included, which is why in a population of nearly 8 million densely packed people we have had 4 deaths.... 4 ! Britain has had 10x more than that in the time it has taken me to type this.
As soon as this infectious Covid-19 virus was made public and the first case was confirmed in HK on Jan 23, 2020 the masks came out. Social distancing is very difficult here but people did their bit, we still do it even after a couple of spikes.
Lastly, we've seen here so many people are Asymptomatic, i.e carriers and spreaders without symptoms, this will be the same in Britain. Wearing a mask will help prevent you spreading this virus, even if you show no symptoms, it has worked here. How hard can it be?
But what do we know ? we've only been through this 17 years ago and we're 98% back to normal now, something that will not be possible in Britain until goodness knows when. Not this year for sure.
Long story short, if you don't want to wear a mask then don't. Boris talks about the public using their common sense but right now I'm not sure there is any.