I wasn't that bothered, it let in the DC motor thrash as well as the cold air!
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Why the fear/anger (or similar) emotions around mask wearing?
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Having skimmed this myself, I'd have to agree that it is a deeply dubious and problematic report - just like most meta-analyses I've looked at over the past 2 years.
All sides of the argument need to be cautious about quoting such things, just because they appear to offer evidence for a position they support. I wouldn't be remotely comfortable quoting any conclusions of this report in any argument I was putting forward.
Because, for the journey I made, I had reasonable alternative options that would not have required me to use TfL.
If the >20% effect on transmission in that John Hopkins study is justified (a big if!), then in a pre-vaccination society, I believe the gain from mass mask wearing would have been justified. In today's UK, I do regard it as disproportionate. I do then agree with you that a side effect of the focus on mass mask wearing has been to diminish focus on how the CEV can be protected most effectively, leading to the very confused and unhelpful debate that we have at present.
I've known plenty who'd have argued that being made to wear black tie is as onerous an imposition on their freedom of expression as a mask! More seriously, I consider that mask wearing is different in degree for precisely the reasons you give, but not to the point of onerousness that you and others would argue.
Which is a matter that applies to a number of the conditions of carriage of railway companies, and the way that they are heavily weighted to the operator. That does not take them to illegitimacy (by which I mean that a court would not uphold them).
Again, a court upholding something does not mean that it is morally right. Nor does the same situation also existing elsewhere, if any other train company chose to unilaterally impose degrading conditions on the public then that would also be morally wrong.
On which note we will have to agree to disagree, as our views on whether masks are "degrading" are obviously so far apart that there can be no agreement on whether requiring them could ever be moral.
This ignores the fact that you contribute to those social norms. If you would like to see mask wearing not be a social norm at this point in time, then not wearing one is the best way to do so, and this has the most influence in the range of the mid point.
Because I think that particular norm will fade away over time, and that it is better that it does so of its own accord than that the issue is forced.
Not "keen", but choosing to fit in with those norms. Perhaps I'm just a conformist?
We can agree it’s tenuous study, tailored to reach a pre ordained conclusion, and indeed has no more merit than the tenuous studies purportedly showing masks to be effective. I also take the point that those who are anti restriction have perhaps jumped on this a little too quickly, which is a symptom of how entrenched positions have become.
One of the worst aspects of the pandemic has been the utter loss of any proper scientific analysis in favour of point scoring and virtue signalling, with even the Royal Society, the WHO etc. giving their blessing to highly partisan and scientifically dubious studies to justify mask mandates (recently cited on another thread). That criticism applies equally to the anti vax/conspiracy theorist side of the argument of course.
Ultimately I suppose it all comes down to our individual value judgements about the government’s decision to mandate masks when they did, in the face of such weak evidence. Some might say it was justified based on the precautionary principle. I would profoundly disagree based on my own view of the quite evident lack of effectiveness weighed against onerousness of the requirement.
At the very most the measure should have been introduced for a brief, defined period, properly analysed, with immediate removal if no evidence of effectiveness was found.
However I remain utterly convinced that this measure was more of a political expedient: a visual reminder of a “threat”; something people could do to signal they were “taking part”. It smacks heavily of behavioural science to me.
Fair enough.
I still don’t quite get the reasoning here. I can understand the stance of someone complying with a request to mask, based on respecting the right of the asker to make the request. Equally I can understand someone going the other way and refusing to wear one (certainly in the case of TfL which people in London have no practical alternative to).
You’re clearly someone who thinks deeply about these issues, so I suppose I’m surprised you would devolve to simply basing your own behaviour on what passengers around you are doing. Presumably you wouldn’t don a mask if you were in a deserted carriage, but then a group of mask wearers walked in? Or perhaps you would?
We’ve established it’s not because you think your actions will make any difference to your (or their) health, and clearly you’re prepared to disregard a request to mask if others around you aren’t complying. Does it come down to a fear of causing offence?
On that basis, would you continue to mask up even once the request has been lifted if others continue to do so in significant numbers?
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I will wear a mask in some situations as long as I feel it is needed, years if needed and if some people don't like that, well that tough as far as I'm concerned, as far as mitigations before covid goes, as was advised to avoid very crowded environments if possible, so I would tend to try avoid situations where that might be a particular issue but overall it didn't put much restriction on my daily life.
I can easily mitigate some issues, ordering groceries online picking up as click and collect instead of going into the store is no hardship as far as I'm concerned, and the Carvery meals that we used to go to the pub for we can get them to take out and have them at home.
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nedchester
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I don’t think anyone should criticise you if you wish to wear a face covering.
However, from what you say you are making some quite big changes to your life compared to as it was prior to Covid. You say it’s not much hardship but surely such a substantial change must cause some amount of distress?
Well its not ideal but people have to adapt as everyone has to adapt to situations that they find themselves in.
The answer is simple: they erroneously do not believe we will (or should) reach endemic equilibrium
Most people have no interest in wearing a mask, no desire to do so, no wish for anyone else to do, but equally are not interested in getting into a debate either.
I boarded the 1500 from Edinburgh today; a family of 3 was at the table opposite mine and a passenger was diagonally opposite me; the latter removed his mask when seated, while the family were unmasked. The Guard then made a threatening announcement and they all put masks on.
People who are against mandatory masks are the silent majority. There is a small minority who are very vocally in support of masks and some of these do indeed get angry; they are all very illogical and they don't know how to argue with me, because I inform them of the huge difference between tight fitting effective masks and flimsy loose fitting masks. They tend to give up arguing when they realise I know my stuff.
Correct; surveys are often done by people with a lot of time on their hands. I did a few back in the first lockdown and then I realised what a waste of time it was and I found other things to do!
There is no legal requirement; TfL requested one and the Government so. It's nothing more than a request and all anyone has to say is "I am exempt" and that is the end of the matter.
Exactly; I am glad you admit it.
How convenient
But you are; you can deny it all you want but you are well aware there is no actual requirement for you to wear a mask; no-one can make you wear a mask; the reasons for you being asked to wear a mask are purely due to Khan's political posturing.
The onus is on those who believe in lockdowns to prove they do work; as stated in the appropriate thread.
That's clearly nonsense because if it was true that there was a 20% drop in mask wearing, how did cases end up so incredibly high in mask-mad countries like France? Why did cases fall in England after the mask mandate ended on 19th July and yet cases rose in Scotland soon after that date, where masks were still required? And why aren't cases going up 20% in England now that masks are no longer mandated?
Mask wearing is not a social norm here and never will be.
It sounds like you are not prepared to adapt to the inevitable fact that you are going to be exposed to Sars-CoV-2 though.
You cannot avoid exposure to Sars-CoV-2 indefinitely.
I appreciate you are distrusting of vaccines (even though they are highly effective against severe illness, including those who are immunocompromised ) and you therefore aim to avoid exposure but it's just not going to be possible. All you will do is delay it.
You'll need to wear a tight fitting FFP3 mask, replaced on a regular basis, and correctly handled/stored when removed, indefinitely to have any chance and you'd need to never eat or drink out. The mask would need to be worn in the presence of any friends or family members, not just in public.
You can restrict your life as much as you want as long as you are no longer calling for restrictions on our lives.
Rogue companies like LNER are trying to force masks upon us with appalling messaging like "be considerate and wear a mask" and for as long as this messaging continues I am going to be pushing back against it.
If you want the issue to no longer be "forced" from any side, there must either be no messaging or entirely neutral messaging e.g. "Masks are optional; please respect each person's choice" or words to that effect. We've had this debate many times before.
You are not conformist to the majority of people, who are unmasked. Selective conformism?
Not only that but a huge (and ever increasing) proportion of cases are asymptomatic, but that's for another thread!
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AJW12
Member
This annoys me so much - it's very guard dependent and thankfully some say nothing at all, but when I was in Oxford last weekend periodic announcements at the station were "thank you for wearing a face covering and being considerate for other passengers" or something of the like - great, yep, I'm inconsiderate / selfish, etc.....
Don't think we need any announcements any more. People know what they are, know how to get one, know what they do (sort of!) - don't see why an announcement is necessary and nor should it be now it's not a requirement. (DFT - if you're looking at cutting down irritating announcements, this is a good one to start with!)
Yes thanks but no thanks for the advice, I know you think you are some kind of self appointed expert and anti mask crusader but I will take my advice from appropriate medical people thanks. In my case there was no antibody response after 2 jabs so I am relying on a T cell response, and like many very high risks groups we have been sent PCR kits and a number to ring in case of infection, so as far as I'm concerned avoiding covid infection as long as possible is preferable.
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You are rejecting my advice regarding effective FFP3 masks? I thought you previously said you were wearing "high grade" masks; what did you mean by that?
I think you will find genuine experts on virus transmission will agree that you would need to wear a tight fitting FFP3 mask (or similar; an FFP2 is not quite as good but far better than a flimsy masks) if you want to avoid transmission and that flimsy, loose fitting masks don't cut it.
T cells are the key to fighting Sars-CoV-2 and there is no need to have antibodies prior to a Sars-CoV-2 infection.
Feel free to delay it as long as possible if you like but you are going to be exposed to it.
Some areas of Germany mandated FFP2 masks but their case rates still shot up massively.
How much do you think it would cost for everyone to wear FFP2/3 masks in accordance with the recommendations? What would you do with the landfill that would create and how would you pay for it? and for what purpose; to delay the onset of endemic equilibrium?
And how would you force that upon people? Employ mask police to harass people as if we were living in China?
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Mainline421
Member
A good article on the question posed by this thread in the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/covid-denmark-end-of-pandemic.html?smid=tw-share
Busaholic
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But some are more biased than others!!
Indeed; it's very easy to do a bit of research and realise that tight-fitting FFP3 masks, when correctly worn/handled/stored are highly effective, whereas flimsy masks which are worn as standard to comply with mandates are ineffective.
However many people like to portray the situation as if all masks are equal; particularly those who wish to impose mandates, as the entire premise of their argument is that their mask is indeed ineffective at protecting them, and that they need other people to wear masks. If they admit that effective masks are available, their argument is destroyed in an instant.
Well you seem to have gone to a lot of effort there to try and manipulate my answers negatively.
By high high grade masks I mean FFP3 or FFP2 masks although FFP3 masks were difficult to get hold of at the height of the 1st lockdown so I had to make do with FFP2, as far your advice goes I certainly didn't reference any information from you and never would.
While T Cells are important yes there is concern from my consultants that the vaccines will not be any where near as effective as a person with a normal immune system who has a vaccine, still maybe I should bow to your superior knowledge on this then again perhaps not. That's why the NHS has sent PCR tests to very high risk groups and number to ring so that potentially some of the early treatment drugs that are now available can be administered quickly.
The argument that people wear masks and cases still shoot up is an argument that frequently used against them, in your case your using the fact that some parts of Germany used FFP2 masks but how do you know that that things wouldn't have been even worse if no masks were worn, and the answer to that in my view is you don't.
The majority of people still tend to wear the disposable blue masks anyway so I'm nor sure landfill would be any worse
I said it would be helpful if people wore masks properly I didn't say anything about forcing people to do that which is not really practical.
Well that’s unfortunate but the only practical thing for you to do is wear FFP2/3 type masks. If you’re already doing that I’m not sure what more can really be done?
So on that basis the government could adopt any arbitrary measure; requiring everyone to carry a crucifix around with them, for example. When that had no discernible difference in Covid infection rates. Your response would be, “we need to keep doing it, because how do you know things wouldn’t be worse otherwise?”.
Essentially it’s a massive exercise in confirmation bias: you’re starting from the basleess premise that this measure works and then ignoring any evidence that it doesn’t on the basis that “we aren’t doing enough of it”, or “things might be worse otherwise”.
That is a logical fallacy which makes it possible to justify any measure in perpetuity, however ineffective, and how ever negative its other impacts might be.
Were you masking prior to 2020? The only thing that has changed between now and then is that masks have been adopted for political reasons; the science hasn’t altered one iota.
It won’t be helpful for anybody if people wear low quality loose fitting surgical or fabric masks which don’t stop viral transmission. They have indeed been forced to do so over the past two years and it has made not the blindest bit of difference.
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This.
While I did not personally agree, I could understand the argument for masking between 2020 and mid 2021 when society was focussed on controlling transmission.
That is not the case any more, so those in favour of masking need to answer why they weren’t in favour pre-2020.
That's not what I'm saying, what I am saying that just because cases rise when there is a mask mandate doesn't mean they don't work, yes you can also argue it doesn't mean they do work either.
It seems to me that there are plenty of articles regarding studies on the internet that suggest that wearing of masks can be of some benefit, and that higher grade masks will likely work better, clearly the conclusion with higher grade masks is hardly rocket science.
Did I wear a mask before 2020 no I didn't but then covid 19 wasn't around then, yes other viruses such as flu did exist then but from my viewpoint I wasn't on an Immunotherapy drug.
But there are still no proper randomised control test type studies showing a benefit. It’s impossible to identify at what point mandates were identified by looking at case figures.
At what point will you accept the measure (mandation if loose coverings in everyday settings) doesn’t make any discernible difference? It sounds to me like your mind is made up and you will never accept masks don’t work, much like a religious belief.
How is persisting in this belief (and that’s what it is) with no evidence underlpinning it any different to being an anti vaxxer?
You can find articles on the internet telling you the world is flat and that that Jews caused 9-11. These are conspiracy theories, difficult to disprove, because it’s impossible to prove a negative, but with no evidence underpinning them. Much like masks!
Seems to me that your equally belligerent in your belief that masks are not effective, yet the scientists that recommended mask wearing must had some scientific basis for it, or did they just do it for a laugh and to annoy people like you.
richa2002
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Look into the government's psychological "nudge" unit and the reasons for mask wearing will become clear. Unethical to say the least.
Do you understand what behavioural science is?
The government told us that “the science has changed”, when implementing the mandate. Can you link to this, please?!
I get the sense that discussing this subject with you is as futile as arguing with a creationist Christian about why God left dinosaur fossils lying around when he created the world in seven days a few hundred years ago... Thankfully your irrational, baseless views are increasingly irrelevant because masks are on the way out.
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