Off Topic Coronavirus - 606 tales from the Inquiry

Disagree with some of that Lardi. The face masks are uncomfortable, especially in hot weather, and sadly the selfishness of some mean you see them blowing along the streets, in the countryside, and generally creating more horrible work for cleaners.
But they protect. Not so much the wearer, but others. It's simple solidarity with the more vulnerable. And the gutter of the world is silly. They've been doing this for what seems like decades in Asia, and countries like Japan, Singipore and South Korea are hardly the gutter of the world. The US on the other hand, has lost and sort of control of Covid-19, as has Brazil, and they are both proudly presided over by presidents who refuse to wear masks, and their supporters who follow them into the mire.

 

I know that my previous post was purely my personal viewpoint.

But when I look at pictures of Japanese people and populations of other East Asian countries all wearing face masks all the time, I'm afraid it does physically repel me.
How can people become so used to having to cover their noses and mouths all the time that it just becomes a natural part of their lives?
How can people just accept that the air they breathe is so toxic (with chemicals or disease) that it will kill them unless they respire through a filter all the time?
To me this is just wrong.
It's a tragedy.

I would never visit a country where the air is so dirty or diseased that you can't breathe it by law.
Even if a Coronairus vaccine is found and distributed, are we all going to be asked to carry on wearing face masks every winter forever, because it will help prevent the spread of seasonal flu?

I have no problem at all with modifying my behaviour during this crisis. Hand washing and social distancing are obviously required. Masks and filters are obviously required too as PPE for people who care for those infected by the virus, or have to work in contaminated environments.

But I do begin to have a problem when requiring face covering is used as a cheap alternative to proper safety, such as on public transport. A way to allow crowded trains and buses again, to serve the economy at the expense of people's health and lives.
Making face coverings a legal requirement in ever more parts of our lives is a soft option - a gimmick being used by Governments to give the impression they are taking strong action, but which is really just a cheap option for them.

I can foresee a time (soon) when inconvenient social distancing has been abandoned altogether.
Hand sanitisers will be seen everywhere. Supplying millions of gallons of whatever-it-is that squirts out of them will have become a major industry. And the manufacturing, distribution and selling of uncounted billions of face masks will also have become a huge industry.

Children will all wear them at school, and teachers will probably discover they serve to make the kids less rowdy and more attentive. Crowds at sports events will wear them, and accept that they cannot chant and cheer like they used to. Busy streets and shops will teem with people all wearing them, and avoiding unneccesary conversation or interaction.
The public will be allowed to behave pretty much however they wish, as long as they keep their face coverings on and wash their hands.

Maybe the vast majority have no problem with that.
For me it evokes a vague feeling of paranoia, reminiscent of Invasion of the Body snatchers.
Everything will look familiar, but something precious and hard to define will be missing.
I'm sorry but that's just how I feel and I can't help it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We accept flourine in our water because it helps to protect against disease. Most of us accept inoculations and vaccines. Half the population wears personal hygiene products to allow a more normal lifestyle during the cycle of a natural biological process. I suppose (in one way or another) all of these things faced some kind of resistance when they were new or novel measures.

Perhaps in future everybody will regard wearing face masks in public as a healthy and clean thing, like washing and showering every morning or using deodorants. Perhaps they will look back to a time when people showed their faces and breathed freely in the open air as bad old days, like those long-ago times when people had no indoor toilets, and had to wear dirty clothes to work.

I'm glad I'll be dead and gone by then, along with my unenlightened attitude.

 

Or maybe we'll get a vaccine and the 'new normsl' will go back to just 'normal'. Surely better to hope for that than to prefer to be dead rather than suffer mask wearing.

As an aside, and I don't know how true this is I did read that lot of Asians wear face masks to avoid passing on coughs and cold, and the pollution, while a factor, is secondary. Given how polite the Japanese (for example) generally are, I can see that being true. Can't confirm it though.

 

I'm really not quite sure why I feel the way I do about this issue.

Perhaps it's linked to a firm conviction I have that people everywhere should have the right to show their faces. It's a basic human right in my view. It's part of being proud of who you are.
Aside from essential medical purposes or as a temporary measure when carrying out dangerous work, anything that requires anybody to cover their face or even partially cover it, is something I am automatically and strongly opposed to.

Millions of women around the world live with such a restriction and are brought up to accept it. People engaged in anti-social or criminal behaviour hide their faces out of cowardice. Hiding your face on the streets is seen as desirable or threatening in some quarters, depending on whether you are part of a gang - or a victim of their lawless activities as they terrorise some parts of our cites.

Protesters against oppressive regimes are forced to cover their faces out of fear of retribution against their families if they are recognised. Victims of hate crimes cannot show their faces through similar fears.

In my opinion nothing good ever comes from having to cover your face.
If it has come to that, something has already gone very badly wrong somewhere along the line.

Any circumstance where everybody is asked (or told) to cover their faces as the new normal condition of everyday life, takes away a very basic freedom. And it opens the door for other freedoms to be taken away as well.

The Government can tell me to stay home, wash my hands, observe social distancing, take a vaccine when its available, or various other things designed to combat the virus crisis. No problem.
But if the Government tells me to cover my face in all public places, I will have a big problem with that.

That's just how I feel.

 

Risk not politics ... yeah right, if you say so First Minister

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-53380900

She can't wait to close the border.
I say let her.

If they don't want us up there anymore I don't have a problem never going there again.
Plenty of other lovely places to visit and spend my money in the UK.

 

I see a man of 30 in the US went to a Covid-19 party. He caught Covid and died. His last words in the hospital were 'I thought it was all a fraud, but it's really bad'.
Not celebrating a death, but that guy is my nomination for the Darwin prize this year.

 

A headline on the BBC website made me smile...

"No new deaths in Scotland for 5th day"

Blimey! Nobody at all has died in Scotland for five days?
It's a miracle!
Somebody tell the Vatican - but pilgrims may be disappointed.
They don't want visitors up there anymore. Strangers are liable to get eaten, or whatever they used to do in the auld days....

 

Face coverings will be compulsory in shops from 24th July



I presume this includes supermarkets.

 

Pubs and restaurants/cafes, gymnasiums?

 

Well it looks as though I'm finally going to be forced to wear a face covering.

I've done everything I can to avoid it.
I don't use public transport. I'm prepared never to enter a shop selling non-essential goods again, if that's what it takes.
But assuming the new rule coming in on 24th July includes supermarkets (they are shops after all) then I'm out of options.

I don't want to have my groceries delivered to me, as I believe that service should be prioritised for vulnerable people.
Also, when they deliver food to you, you always get stuff that is right on its sell-by date.

So basically I can wear a face covering when I have to go shopping, or starve.

I wonder how long it will be until the law says we must cover our faces all the time in public.
Not long now I guess.
Probably when the second wave comes in October/November.

I'm far from convinced that this is necessary or that it will make anything other than the tiniest positive difference.
I am convinced this is about softening people up in preparation for the complete removal of social distancing rules - for economic reasons.
And about increasing State control and diminishing personal freedom.

I used to think it was only in places like North Korea or some of the more strictly Islamic countries where the State could dictate to the people what they wear. Looks l I will have to change my thinking.

 

It will be everywhere eventually.
And I'm convinced it will replace social distancing.

We will be encouraged (forced) to cram into buses and tubes and go back to work, in order to pay off the massive national debt.
Crowded, enclosed spaces of every kind will be back on the agenda in the name of getting the economy functioning again - as long as we wear face coverings by law.

 

Oh dear. The economy only grew 1.8% in May compared to April.

Time to throw out the social distancing laws and force people back to work.
Just wash your hands and wear your masks.

 

Here's a question for all those advocates of wearing face masks;

If face coverings are so sensible and not wearing them is actually anti-social, why don't we see anybody wearing a face mask on TV adverts?

I just watched an entire ad break.
Plenty of references to 'getting back to normal' and plenty of smiling happy faces.
Not one mask or face covering in sight.

If - as the pro-mask lobby insists - face masks will make shoppers feel safer and more confident, why is that not being reflected in happy-clappy TV advert land?

Something wrong with this picture, surely...

 

Another disturbing aspect of the compulsory wearing of face masks is that it turns how people look into a political act.

Politicians who have felt a rush of power to their heads like Nicola Sturgeon have said that not wearing a face mask where you are supposed to, should be regarded as anti-social, and equated it to not wearing a seat belt or even drink-driving.

When you begin to tell people that the way they look (NOT the way they behave) can be regarded as anti-social, you are going down a very dangerous path. You are legitimising and promoting prejudice.

Black Lives Matter.
(remember that?)
We are supposed not to make judgments about strangers we meet based on how they look - the colour of their skin for example, or clothing related to their religious beliefs - but now it will be a good thing in the eyes of Ms Sturgeon and like-minded leaders, if we judge somebody purely based on whether or not they are wearing a face mask.

People with some kinds of Autism, people with breathing difficulties or some psychological problems (claustrophobia related) cannot wear face masks.
But these people are now going to have to prove to the righteous general public - Ms Sturgeon's Covid stormtroopers - that they are not anti-social scum to be despised and abused, just because they are incapable of wearing a face mask.

How damaging to an autistic person, or to a claustrophobic person, is it going to be, to be confronted, lectured to and possibly abused by complete strangers? To face the unjust anger of people who revel in the opportunity to be intolerant, thinking that makes them morally superior.
Massively damaging.
The very last thing these vulnerable people need is to be singled out and victimised.


In 1930's Nazi Germany Jewish people were forced to self-identify in public by wearing the Star of David. They could then be villified and persecuted by people who enjoyed feeling superior and looking down on others.

Now in 2020 in the United Kingdom, vulnerable people are going to be forced to self-identify in public because they cannot wear a face mask.
So they too will be easy targets for abuse by some members of the 'superior' majority.

Some well meaning people have suggested folk who cannot wear a face mask should have a badge of some kind explaining that they are exempt.
It is a matter of shame upon us all if such a badge is deemed a good idea.
And if they do start issuing them, the design might as well be a yellow six-pointed star.

I hope the power hungry self-righteous politicians will feel pleased with themselves when reports begin coming in of vulnerable people being harassed and abused because they are not wearing face masks.

 

You did not just compare this to the treatment of the Jews, surely. I’m no fan of wearing a mask, but it is what it is, get on with it

 

The effect is similar even if the circumstances and intentions are entirely different.

We are exposing a vulnerable minority to prejudice and abuse by forcing them to identify as different - and apparently flouting the law.
Then we are asking them to prove they are innocent of being anti-social.

Politicians have a duty to protect everyone, not just the majority.
They should not be so eager to brand people as anti-social (no better than drink-drivers) because they are not wearing a face mask.
That is the politics of division and discrimination.

 

Matt Hancock says there are "no plans" to make the wearing of face masks compulsory in offices.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53415030

He does not say it won't happen.
He says there are no plans.
That's just political code for we'll do it later if we feel like it.

We are being softened up by the creeping advance of compulsory face coverings.
First on public transport.
Now in all shops and supermarkets.
Eventually everywhere.
The time will come when you'll be breaking the law if you walk out through your front doorway without a face mask on.

If most people aren't bothered about that, then so be it.
I think it's wrong and a denial of a basic freedom. And I'll always believe that.

 

I only personally know of two elderly people that have been lost to this virus , when I say “know”i mean that loosely, but if they’re now saying wear a mask to prevent spread of virus I will to protect my “Family bubble”

 

Graffiti artist Banksy defaces a tube carriage, and cleaners remove his criminal damage...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53415832

What's the problem?
Are TFL pissed off because they could have sold the carriage for £10 million?

 

Not sure this is ethical...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53426367

But if it goes ahead, the volunteers deserve to be thanked for their extraordinary bravery.
If they have a bad reaction to Coronavirus (and a few surely will) they could suffer life-long complications that ruins their health. Or they might even lose their lives.