It’s working, right? Oh, maybe not.
Anti-maskers have been flouting new coronavirus laws in force today which make the wearing of face coverings in shops, banks and shopping centres across England compulsory.
Lara Crabb spoke of people avoiding her ‘like the plague’ as she filmed herself shopping in a farm store and a Tesco branch in Devon without covering her nose and mouth with a mask.
Meanwhile tattoo artist Aron Walton filmed himself entering a Sainsbury’s branch without a face covering which he dismissed as useless as he told staff they cannot enforce the new policy.
In London a Twitter account under the moniker ‘Mr. Grunter’ filmed the moment he entered a Boots store and asked a guard if he could enter without a face covering as he claimed he ‘can’t wear a mask’.
As I’ve already mentioned when discussing this idiotic policy, if people flout it in enough numbers, it will force a change of direction. An unenforceable law is pointless, which is why the police are already suggesting that they won’t be putting themselves out over it.
What is interesting is the reaction of the bovine herd who don their masks obediently.
After shopping in a local farm store without a mask, she recorded herself telling how other shoppers ‘were avoiding me like the plague’ and ‘trolleys were going around me as if I was some big obstruction’, adding: ‘You can sort of see in people’s eyes what they’re thinking when they see you without a mask, it’s so sad that it’s come to this’.
A day previously walking into a shop unmasked was legal, so okay, then it wasn’t legal and now unmasked folk are the plague incarnate. I’ve bemoaned the lack of critical thinking here often enough, but this isn’t even a lack of critical thinking, it’s a lack of thinking entirely. There are so many obvious contradictions in government policy on this matter that people should see it for the sham that it is – not to mention ONS data that tells us that we are not facing a killer virus, that we are dealing with the aftermath of a variation of the flu that is doing precisely what its predecessors have done. But, no, people still believe the scary figures that are unreliable and not very scary at all.
Yet people are blindly believing that not wearing a mask means that you are breathing germs all over them. Unless they are prepared to give up breathing, no more than they are on you, but they are too thick to understand that a virus of less than 2.5 µm will sail through the pores in a mask.
And, I guess, that’s what disappoints me so much – the medieval level credulousness and sheer bovine stupidity and ignorance on display.
As for me, I do have a valid reason not to wear one, so I’ll wave this around when I next have to go shopping in person.
I can’t print one out but I understand that you don’t have to produce one to ‘prove’ exemption and that a shop will be in breach of equality law if it refuses entry to a shopper claiming exemption on health grounds.
You shouldn’t have to, but it might make it less likely that you will get an ice cream tub tipped over you…
If you follow the link, you can download one to display on your phone.
I ventured into the big local Tesco today and decided to not display my exemption sign. No challenge from any of the staff. Some looks from other shopper, I think some disapproving but most were envy!
So how long, I wonder before it all falls apart?
I think it will go one of two ways; either the general sheeple will stop wearing them when they realise no action will be taken and it will all fizzle out quietly, or the govt will double down and require doctor issues exemption permits. I’m 50/50 at this point…
Could go that way, but looking at the shambles so far, I lean more to it collapsing in an incompetent heap.
Spoke to a girl who works for John Lewis who are compelling staff to muzzle up, not happy and somewhat aware of the bacterial soup she is creating for herself to breath; suggested she points out H&S implications to her HR contact.
According to this site they would have difficulty doing so:
http://www.laworfiction.com/2020/07/face-covering-for-6-to-12-months-from-24th-july/
The regulations do not and cannot trump discrimination law
Anti-discrimination laws in the Equality Act 2010 cannot be overwritten by these regulations. The Equality Act provides fundamental protections for citizens with disabilities. These also overlap with rights to a privacy and autonomy having to be treated with reference to their disability (or, for that matter, their gender, race, sexuality etc.)
Their latest post has more details of this Act, and how you can printout or save their “Toolkit” to a mobile phone, and carry it with you in case you’re challenged.
http://www.laworfiction.com/2020/07/face-covering-litigation-threats-and-administrative-headache/
The reason for the envy is that a well known brainwashing technique is to get the ‘victim’ to agree to a lie they know not to be true: the British public are nearly there but not quite just yet.
As I said previously @ Longrider: wrong move, wrong time Bozza.
Just been to the big supermarket and was asked by the girl on the door if I had a mask. I replied that I was exempt on health grounds and she waved me in. I saw no other shopper without a mask. One or two indignant looks from other shoppers. At the checkout two staff members and a customer were talking about a man who’d come in earlier without a mask (I gather when asked he was quite aggressive). When one of the staff came by me I insisted on telling him that I wasn’t wearing a mask for health reasons and agreed with him that the supermarket’s policy of not challenging customers was a good one otherwise the firm would be in breach of the equality act (I did all this in the hope that some customers might overhear and stop and think before tut-tutting at we mask-free shoppers.
If they’d refused me entry Plan B was to put on a disposable mask on which I’d written “THIS IS THE NEW NORMAL FOREVER” after I’d told them I’d be writing to Head Office and my MP (which I would have done).
OT but I opened an email from “Boris” today asking me for money for the Tory coffers. The bare-faced cheek after destroying the economy, handing out money like dolly mixtures and giving the public sector a pay increase!!!!! There was a reply button so I emailed back saying I’d spent my meagre disposable income on face masks :>
Indeed; there is no party left worth my vote. We need a new party with true conservative, small govt and free trade values – for the first time ever I will seriously consider spoiling my ballot paper at the next GE as I just can’t stomach the thought of actively endorsing any of the current shower.
P.S well done Jay for making a stand – we all need to encourage the conformist masses to engage their brains.
I’m using a face shield, which is velcro-attached to a hat. £4.99 on Amazon. Also, I have printed out excerpts from the Gov.uk site guidelines re exemptions: just waving these A5 leaflets at the mask prefects/jobsworths makes them back down.
The Farm Store in question will be Darts Farm just outside Topsham, the go-to place for the media for all things rural.
Emboldened by my retail forays on Friday and Saturday I split my large Sunday am shop between 6 stores not yet visited since Mask Up Friday.
Almost all the other shoppers were masked but none of the staff gave me a second glance, I had my ‘mask exempt card’ in my pocket but did not need to produce it.
If challenged in future I will not defensively brandish my Card but reply cheerfully
“Thanks mate/luv/darling but I’m exempt, cheers”
You’d be in good company – Matt Hancock considers himself exempt (according to his twitter account).
Oops – seems that the Hancock twitter account might be a parody account.