Nobody in the UK is seriously fighting the wearing of masks.
Yes of course they must help, in the situations posted above by Esteban.
For a long time in this epidemic, the UK (and all other countries in Europe) didn’t exactly encourage mask wearing because they all buy this PPE kit from China and when this thing first blew up in Feb or so everybody was going crazy to buy the required PPE, and nobody could get what they needed. It took several months for production to ramp up. There was a lot of dodgy politics going on e.g. in every country a based manufacturer would deliver domestic orders while defaulting on foreign orders even if delivery dates were confirmed. None of this stuff could be discussed openly (and still cannot now) because it makes each country’s govt look incompetent, unprepared, etc, etc and you cannot criticise your neighbours, especially not in the EU, and everybody needs China so you can’t slag them off either 
With the current Huawei stuff they might play a bit of hardball, too.
If a country mandated mask wearing say in April their domestic health service would have seen their supplies dry up while the “enterpreneurs” are printing their own money by selling them for €5 each (buy price €0.05)
Only now, with plenty of Chinese PPE kicking around, can Europe mandate mask wearing.
And of course prices have collapsed (a bit)
Living in the countryside we have thus far avoided masks totally, but I have a box of the “genuine NHS” ones from a supplier in China, from back in Feb, so will probably get beaten up when wearing them
Going to a pub is pure Russian roulette – in any sizeable city – unless you are young.
arj1 wrote:
The message here in the UK is that it is OK to go to pub, (no mask, obviously), but not OK to go to a large supermarket, where there is a proper distancing with no mask.
I am sorry, I don’t follow closely the UK rules. The things I notice are attacking a driver/clerk/security guy demanding wearing a mask according to rules, or (especially in US) people saying that demanding wearing a mask indoors is an affront to personal freedoms.
Re pubs mask no, supermarket yes: This is subtle and frankly, I would prefer the pubs and similar to remain closed. Nevertheless: you can go to a supermarket wearing mask without impairing the activity you are going to the supermarket for. Furthermore, people really have to do grocery/basic necessities shopping (not sure whether the delivery systems are still overburdened), even those that are at risk. So without mask you are really endangering people who have no other choice. On the other hand, having a mask at a bar really messes up your beer drinking/eating/whatever. Moreover, going to bar is non-essential and can be easily avoided by those who want to limit their risk. Those who go to bars by simply going there give an implicit consent to being in a more-at-risk situation.
Re: gloves: I notice some people wearing gloves in supermarket. I guess its a matter of diminishing returns: properly wearing and handling gloves is not so easy, and most transmissions are anyway probably airborne. You might also want to wear goggles/face shield … you have to stop somewhere, as demanding too much will produce backlash and will be counterproductive. Even demanding masks is too much for some.
Peter wrote:
If a country mandated mask wearing say in April their domestic health service would have seen their supplies dry up while the “enterpreneurs” are printing their own money by selling them for €5 each (buy price €0.05)
I don’t remember the exact timeliness, but I’m fairly certain that that Germany mandated masks while shopping or on public transport in April. We also never had a real shortage of the lower grade medical masks, although FFP2/N95/KN95 masks were in short supply for a few weeks.
Peter wrote:
but I have a box of the “genuine NHS” ones from a supplier in China, from back in Feb, so will probably get beaten up when wearing them
Really? Over here, about half the people seem to wear “genuine” medical masks in public, with the rest wearing self-made ones. I usually just keep my clinical mask on if going shopping after a shift.
Then again, Germany has a genuine manufacturing base and was able to become self-sufficient on masks within weeks.
A quick search for “beer straw mask” shows that thousands of people have cut holes in their masks so they can use straws!
Peter wrote:
If a country mandated mask wearing say in April their domestic health service would have seen their supplies dry up while the “enterpreneurs” are printing their own money by selling them for €5 each (buy price €0.05)
Slovakia/Czech Republic mandated masks from early (or was it mid?) March. It was forbidden to sell high-grade masks (those were for medical staff), but you could get some (somewhat overpriced, but how many masks do you need?) or make your own. Tough to say what was the most effective, but it is true that Slovakia did remarkably well early on, without the draconic measures employed in the harder hit areas. Now we are shooting up, but people are behaving almost pre-covid like, so no surprise there.
An observation from the Netherlands. About 100 lung specialists have observed the following.
A high proportion of patients that have not been hospitalized seem to be recovering slower than those who have been. They have breathing problems and suffer from exhaustion. The symptoms initially seem to improve, but then remain constant but sometimes there is even a relapse. Surprisingly, the lung scans show little or no damage. An explanation for this (subject to further investigation of course) could be that in case of a ‘mild’ infection, less antibodies are released and the recovery of the ilness is therefore slower. A test for antibodies often shows negative for these patients. In those cases where some lung damage is detectable, it is too early to determine if that is permanent. That would take another 6-12 months to confirm.
This caught my eye because a family member of mine fits that bill. For a few months already he’s panting heavily after just climbing one flight of stairs. A 31-year old very avid sportsman, fit as can be before this..
Strangely, I recall at the outbreak the message was there is no scientific evidence etc
as opposed to we dont know – or at least that is my recollection.
I suspose it could be argued both answers amount to the same, but in fact I think for most people the first suggests masks are of no value. This would or could have been the wrong conclusion, because a lack of evidence points neither in one direction or another. It points to my second line above.
Polticians love misleading answers and this is a great example of how they will say they did not lie, it was all of us that drew the wrong conclusion, from a factually correct answer!
Just stumbled on a well-written statistical breakdown of C19 if anyone’s interested in the geekier stuff
https://medium.com/analyticaper/covid-19-what-the-data-tells-us-3a08e42ee36f
also good
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-case-counts-are-meaningless/
It is interesting but also representative of a later era in the treatment. For example they say the mortality is ~0.3%, which is much less than previously thought, but yes indeed this would be so now because of much smarter treatments, not just sticking everybody on a ventilator.
This bit: Everyone wants to talk about Fatalities, and we have work to do there. We’re missing some, but we also have clear instances of over-counting, i.e. gunshot victims counted because they had tested positive. has just turned up in the UK where it was “discovered” that every CV19 death was actually any death of a person why had tested positive at any time previously. This is completely nuts because it means eventually some 10-20% of the UK “will die” of the virus, upon reaching old age But more immediately it means that the deaths are over-reported by a large %. The ex- Univ of Upper Warlingham “statisticians” who run this system should be fired. There will now be a proper enquiry into this cockup.
The UK is now talking about testing the whole population once a week. That would allow all lockdown measures to be removed.
Peter wrote:
This bit: Everyone wants to talk about Fatalities, and we have work to do there. We’re missing some, but we also have clear instances of over-counting, i.e. gunshot victims counted because they had tested positive. has just turned up in the UK where it was “discovered” that every CV19 death was actually any death of a person why had tested positive at any time previously. This is completely nuts because it means eventually some 10-20% of the UK “will die” of the virus, upon reaching old age But more immediately it means that the deaths are over-reported by a large %. The ex- Univ of Upper Warlingham “statisticians” who run this system should be fired. There will now be a proper enquiry into this cockup.
Sweden counts deaths in the same way…. Except that there is a 30 day “timeout” on the Covid-19 diagnosis – are you sure the UK doesn’t have something similar? But yes, we’ve have cases where traffic accident fatalities have entered the Covid-19 statistics.
