idk why anyone makes a fuss about a mask, doesn't bother me at all, if anything a mask is the least of the problem, better to keeps the masks and relax other stuff
Yeah, that's what bugs me too, well I can understand it being a bit annoying for long periods of time (then again dentists and surgeons have to wear them) - but the amount of moaning about just having to wear one for 15 mins in Tesco or on your train/bus journey where you'll be sat down and hardly doing anything physically active is just ridiculous.
I've got two pro-"freedom"/libertarian mates who hated lockdowns and were so keen for the government to open up - the problem is that they also opposed/mocked stuff that would reduce the chance of lockdown - like getting angry about masks and contact tracing last summer. It's so self-defeating + now one of them is anti-vax too FFS!
The government (and to be fair SAGE too) were slow on masks (it's not like the SNP in Scotland or Labour in Wales were doing anything differently here either early last year) - this was annoying as it was so obvious - I ordered a respirator mask back in January 2020 + a load of online food deliveries as the supermarket shelves were bound to get stripped at some point, had a bunch of KN95s too well before they were mandatory - it annoyed me that even when I went for a hospital appointment there were hospital staff walking around indoors with no masks on (the new rules hadn't come in at that point) - clearly they will have spread it like crazy among themselves and no doubt infected a bunch of patients on the non-covid wards.
The problem is by the time they did the u-turn on masks there was so much conflicting info in the press and a bunch of people were hostile to them so they implemented a half-arsed approach whereby anyone could just declare an exemption - the major supermarkets played a part here, claiming they didn't want to enforce mask rules. this is a cop-out for them as they're perfectly capable of telling a group of chavvy teens they can't buy fags or booze and they seem to be quite happy to police women's clothing (see the regular press story from some seaside town where a young woman has been turned away form some supermarket for wearing a bikini top or short shorts).
The exemptions just created a load of entitled people - anyone who wanted to could claim that they can't wear a mask because of anxiety or asthma etc.. -conversely there are very vulnerable people with severe COPD or people with CF who have had a lung removed etc... quite keen to wear masks because they're genuinely vulnerable. It was a complete cop-out - given that the basic surgical or cloth masks don't restrict your breathing. There was a doctor on Twitter who filmed a video hooked up to an oxygen monitor to demonstrate this, it's purely a psychological thing - despite the social media nonsense about CO2. The respirator style ones do a bit (KN95/N95/FFP2) but they aren't required - I choose to wear them as they offer much more protection.
I asked my sister (a doctor) if she could think of any legit reasons why someone really couldn't wear one, she thinks it's BS too, can't think of any. I was curious about whether this was even a thing when she was at medical school - out of the hundreds of students there back when she was at medical school pre-pandemic did any of them not wear a mask because of some claimed "medical reasons" or had she ever heard of such a thing - the answer, nope - it just wasn't a thing pre-pandemic.
She's in a medical speciality now but also carries out some surgical interventions + had done a bunch of different surgical rotations as a junior doctor and when putting training on hold to work overseas in Australia - she had never seen any doctors or nurses claiming they're unable to wear a basic surgical mask during an operation.
Yet when the mask requirements came in, I could look around my local Tesco and about 25% of people weren't wearing masks, plenty of them young or middle-aged people happily walking around and talking normally, clearly not out of breath etc.. It was total BS - the government should have simply required mask-wearing indoors on transport and supermarkets and simply told supermarkets to enforce it just as they enforce ID for alcohol purchasing + fine them if they don't enforce it... either the security guard at the door refusing entry or the cashiers refusing service to anyone not wearing a mask.
For the sake of completeness, assuming there are a tiny tiny portion of people with very serious breathing difficulties or severe mental health issues and really do struggle with masks (need full-time carer support etc..) then home deliveries of food etc.. should have been provided for them - I mean frankly if your breathing was so bad that even a basic cloth mask is going to cause issues you probably shouldn't be in a supermarket and mixing with others.
Anyway, random rant over... I do miss forums sometimes, can't post a big rant like this on twitter LOL