For the absolute last time

Viral particles travel through surgical masks with impunity.

If you want to protect yourself & others wear a fully sealed NBC suit with the correct filter for your respirator.

The mountains are calling & I must go.

If within droplets they don't travel so far, do they? Some will be trapped by the mask. Fully sealed are better, but any barrier, even a hand or a sleeve is better than nothing.

SW19 CPFC has given you a much more comprehensive answer.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

As you know very well, or certainly ought to know, this was never the point.

The point was to delay the spread, using every way that could be imagined, to ensure that the NHS wasn't overwhelmed and whilst the vaccines were being developed.

Once that had been achieved the brakes came off and all of did get the virus, some of us several times. The vaccines that protected us from severe disease were then boosted by the effects of the infection.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Yes and no

Definitely agree that giving the impression that pieces of cloth and flimsy surgical masks were more effective than they actually were wasn't honest.

Also agree that arresting people for not wearing them (did this actually happen? and if it did, en masse?) was too far. Fines, sure. If you need to maintain control in such an unprecedented scenario unprecedented steps will be taken. Scrutiny can then be applied later. There's no time for mollycoddling or meekly fiddling while Rome burns.

However I can imagine a scenario where the psychological and behavioural impact of mask wearing also came into the decisions around enforcement at the time – when you're in a corner and you need to think fast, sometimes you've got to make controversial calls that you think will make a difference.

'Everyone was going to get this virus: mask or no mask and lies were told without any consequence.'

Everyone was going to get this virus. Yep, agree. Don't agree on the 'without any consequence' assuming you mean mask wearing and all other preventative measure had no positive impact. Quite a statement... and quite clearly mask wearing and the behavioural impact of restrictions and enforcements such as lockdowns that went with it were designed to slow rate of infection down, and reduce severity of infection until such time as a vaccine was well adopted enough to take up the slack.

Sure, you can debate the ethics of how those rules were decided upon and enforced, whether lockdowns should have lasted as long as they did – all valid, and again should be properly scrutinised to the next time this happens we're able to make better choices... but to suggest none of these things worked? Not sure how you can reach that conclusion.

Ultimately it was decided that the impact of doing nothing far outweighed the temporary impact economic, ethical or otherwise, in a fast moving scenario when 'wait and see' and 'make up your own mind, you're on your own, but your rights are intact so all good' really wouldn't have cut it.

Unique scenario, unique approach.

Edited by SW19 CPFC (06 Mar 2023 9.54pm)

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

The vaccines are an integral piece of this and cannot just be dismissed as unconnected.

You are again talking total bs when you claim that masks made no difference to the spread. No-one can possibly know that because we did wear masks, and we don't know what would have happened if we didn't. Even if it could be established that, with hindsight, it was found they made no difference, it was still the right thing to do to mandate them. We needed to take every available step, some would work, others, like the Nightingale Hospitals didn't and weren't needed. Perhaps because other measures, like masks, did work. We were in a crisis, surrounded by unknowns and had to adopt all available measures.

Smart-arses always know best, when what they think never has to be tested, and they are not under pressure to make decisions.

More smart-arse bs about the NHS never going to be overwhelmed. Now as well as being an expert on everything else, you know more than our Chief Scientific Officer and the senior management at the NHS? That risk existed. You don't construct and equip hospitals overnight. The world was scrambling for respirators and if the worst case scenario had been realised, we would have been overwhelmed. Money could not have solved that problem.

It was bad enough as it was, with so much elective surgery having to be delayed as wards were converted to accommodate Covid patients. I don't suppose you have any idea of just what it was like. Having to manage Covid and non_Covid patients in the same hospitals, dividing areas into Red and Green zones, staffing them separately and with large numbers of staff becoming ill, and off work themselves. Only when the vaccines arrived did things begin to ease, but the knock-on effects will be felt for years.

The idea that things would have been better if we had not locked down, and not worn masks, would be funny if it wasn't so embarrassingly pathetic.

Then you wonder why I got so angry with those who refused the vaccines and still do. I find this whole approach irresponsible and selfish.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

You don't trust Cochrane either??? It's a more recent, and worldwide review. Or have you not bothered to read it too?

Systematically dragged down by the lawmakers