Vocal Voices

We were all going to be free on July the 19th weren't we? Of course we were. Boris was very optimistic, Javid was, Sunak was.

But we have been here before a few times. The times when restrictions were going to be eased right up until a few days previous, when a new "crisis" would suddenly spring up.

And with Boris "wonky trolley" in charge (because he wants to go one way, but can be pushed the other), you just knew it was going to happen again. As indeed it has.
Roughly thirty seconds after saying everything is grand, Mr Trolley is now saying (after all restrictions are lifted) that there may have to be "more precautions".
So obviously there is a difference between restrictions and precautions?

Today we get it. There is a "crisis in schools". Honestly, how much longer can this garbage go unchallenged? On one day last week 450 people died of heart desease, 400 of cancer, 180 of dementia - and six of covid. How safe do you want to be, exactly?

Healthy children don't die of Covid. Vaccines have been remarkably good at defeating the virus for adults. What is he playing at?

But, here we are again. Somebody in SAGE has gone "Ooooh" and our PM, trembling Thomas, has gone weak at the knees again.

The covid test MrsC took involved something being shoved up her nose. Can you imagine doing that every day to young children? How much will that upset them? And to what purpose?

Crazy.

I think that his "extra precautions" were a reference to foreign travel in general and to amber list countries in particular. Not that he has any control over what those countries might decide at any time of their choosing about UK travellers - double jabbed or not. But who knows for sure? It's Johnson after all.

Then the other day we had the Javidiot banging on that "Covid restrictions in England must come to an end on 19 July." and that the move would be "irreversible": that is until it isn't. So it's dates not data, but with the caveat: “No date we choose comes with zero risk for Covid.”

Clear?

I have given up listening to them because the messages are so mixed. Most people I see when I am out and about are doing their own thing anyway. OK, some places are still shut or restricted and they do need to open up, but in places already open people are going about business as normal - well, a version of it.

I'm not particularly bothered by the lifting of current restrictions because it's been made clear that you will be free to continue to adopt the current regime, if that's what you want.

It's down to personal choice. You may be happy to make a bonfire of your face-coverings and party into the night at your local bistros, but we'll almost certainly continue to wear face-masks in settings such as shops and supermarkets, and we will almost certainly not be dining out in cafes or restaurants. It's what you feel comfortable with, and if this is a free society, that's as it should be.

I'm just wondering who people wearing face masks into shops, where most do not, think they will be protecting?

I think this has to be reiterated and re-stated every other week. If you wear a face mask you DO NOT PROTECT YOURSELF. You are protecting others from the microscopic moisture particles in your breath. Wearing a mask does not protect you from those particles because your eyes are porous. This has been proven over and over again. You either wear fully enclosed face masks, with filters, which protect eyes and breathing ( the nostril membranes are porous too), plus gloves so you don't transmit via your pores, or you are NOT protected.

Once people stop wearing masks in shops, then everyone might as well stop wearing masks. Because they are not an incoming shield, they are an outgoing shield.

I watch people here with their face mask welded to their face, in shops, out of shops, in their vehicle on their own. It is both pitiful and pitiable that people have been scared into these actions without understanding what they are doing.

I wear a mask to protect others from me. I know I don't have covid but they need the assurance that I am protecting them. Once we get the all clear to stop wearing them, I will stop, immediately. The second I am not in a transmissible position to transmit to others I remove the mask. That means 4 steps outside the shops. I see smug, self satisfied looks all the time. Those who believe they are protecting themselves and are clueless to the actual situation.

As for the "extra precautions"? I don't know, 1,300 scots came to London who were already infected, then proceeded to act as if Covid didn't exist. That is neither responsible behaviour nor any form of common sense. If people can't employ common sense or responsible behaviour, then what choice does the government have but to apply controls to those who won't control themselves?

Sorry, Suff, your obviously strongly-felt arguments don't convince me. Plenty of research out there suggests cloth face masks do protect the wearer, for example:

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-07-08-ox ... k-act-now/
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n432

No, they won't protect you 100%, but any protection is better than no protection.
Anyway, as I mentioned above, it's a matter of personal choice. Each to their own; 'nuff said.

Ossie, I am like you - hands, face and space - and will continue until I am sure things are safer. My mask stays.

However, what I am also saying is that very few people now sanitise before entering and leaving shops and offices. More people are not wearing masks and they never get challenged - were they ever? Groups of all sizes are wandering about, picnicking or sitting about in parks. There are people in pubs, restaurants and cafes in groups of all sizes and they are, of course, all from the same household, family or bubble - or maybe not.

Absolutely agreeing with Frank and Ossie on mask wearing.

TheOstrich wrote:I'm not particularly bothered by the lifting of current restrictions because it's been made clear that you will be free to continue to adopt the current regime, if that's what you want.

As said, we don't know if or when any restrictions are going to be lifted.
That was my point.
We are continually being gaslighted by a weak government and a group of scientists who produce wildly inaccurate forecasts and not one of whom has lost one penny piece during lock downs.

TheOstrich wrote:It's down to personal choice.

With respect, no it isn't. The rules say I have no choice.

TheOstrich wrote: You may be happy to make a bonfire of your face-coverings and party into the night at your local bistros, but we'll almost certainly continue to wear face-masks in settings such as shops and supermarkets, and we will almost certainly not be dining out in cafes or restaurants. It's what you feel comfortable with, and if this is a free society, that's as it should be.

I agree. But over the last sixteen months I think our society hasn't been at all free, and we don't know when it will be again.

ps Me and MrsC don't have the inclination or energy to be having knees-ups long into the night! Half past ten and that's us done.

I feel for you and do understand, Cromwell, but what can we do?

It is a virus and it does not care about people, 'Freedom Days', restrictions, dates or so on. It does its own thing and will continue to do so, regardless, until it weakens and becomes a non-issue.

Restrictions and vaccines help to slow it and will mitigate its effects to next to nothing, but what else can we do till that time arrives?

What pissed me off, and bigly, is that the government keeps giving us these deadlines, end dates and terminuses; and the media then builds up our hopes based on them - see 'Freedom Day' as an example. To me those actions are more damaging than to keep on monitoring and then easing up gradually as and when we can.

What is for sure is that there is no text book answer.

Not helped by the fact that we are seeing the fastest rise in the young and we now learn that schoolkids have been frigging the lateral flow tests to bunk off school.

At some point the focus has to change. Is it worse than flu? No means we unlock, yes means we remain locked down.

It has to come eventually. This acting like we have no vaccine is ridiculous and will only add to the backlash when the whole truth is know.

Measures put in place to control a pandemic with no remedy were acceptable and even acceptable at the outset of the vaccination campaign. Those measures are no longer acceptable when we are well into the last stage of vaccinations for the population.

The health professionals and the spurts may think they are in the driving seat now but if they don't understand that every thing they say and do will be put under a microscope and second guessed in the years to come they'd better start beating themselves with a clue stick fast.