Chris wrote:This is nothing to do with other treatments being postponed or jobs being lost - you made a slightly sarky comment about us wearing masks now, but not for previous epidemics and whether we should feel guilty about it.
I was just pointing out that there haven't been any epidemics of this severity during our lifetimes (yes Brian, I know) - common sense tells us that different measures might therefore be appropriate.
Chris, we are repeatedly told that 'the science' is determining the government's response to covid, not 'common sense'. The government has not advanced any hard scientific evidence for the mandating of face coverings. In fact it has acknowledged that the evidence for the efficacy of face coverings in impeding the transmission of the virus is 'weak', and this is the position that Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Harries and Hancock are all on record as supporting. Thus the decision to mandate the wearing of masks was based not on 'the science', but on 'the politics'.
And, in the wider picture, it has
everything to do with 'other treatments being postponed or jobs being lost'. The insistence on face coverings is an index of the one-eyed approach to a public health event that's doing such harm to the economy and livelihoods and is producing a fatal health fallout for individuals with other very serious health conditions.