I blame the media, the government and SAGE for this stupidity.
For many, the headlong rush back to “normal” means the end of the few freedoms they had been able to enjoy. A trip to a shop enabled by everyone wearing masks and prescribed social distancing becomes too much of a risk when those measures disappear. Shielders are forced to make unenviable decisions about risk, balancing their physical safety with the need for connection. Many have found solace in the online disability community, but fear that this will represent their only socialising for months, if not years, to come.
Shielders do not want a return to lockdown, even if in some ways it was when they felt most supported. As three of them tell us below, they simply want mask wearing and some social distancing to remain, so they can venture out without being scared.
Being brutal for a moment – their health is not my concern, it is theirs and it is up to them to do what they believe necessary to protect themselves. It is not my responsibility to pander to their fears, nor to make them feel safe. If they don’t, well, they can hide away. Or they could just recognise that the woo that has been peddled for the past two years makes not one jot of difference. They will either get it or they won’t – and expecting the rest of us to wear the equivalent of a magic talisman to ward off evil sprits in order to make them feel safe is staggeringly selfish.
So, no, I won’t and I don’t expect to be told that I should.
On the second point – none of it makes any difference anyway. It’s all about perception, not actually making these people any safer and never was. Whether people are wearing masks or not is irrelevant. The risk they face is the same.
The Guardian, of course, publishes this risible rubbish because they really do want the restrictions to continue as it feeds into their authoritarian mindset and they love the fear porn. There is no ‘headlong rush’ back to normality. My tortoises can do the marathon quicker than this lot have returned us to normal – and we ain’t there yet. None of this insanity should have happened in the first place.
Nothing stopping them wearing masks and social distancing. They can ensure that the stay 2m away from everyone all by themselves. I will of course continue to say ‘What did you say. that mask makes you mumble’ every time they try and engage with me.
Hopefully, the stress will see them off. At least it won’t be covid.
“expecting the rest of us to wear the equivalent of a magic talisman to ward off evil sprits in order to make them feel safe is staggeringly selfish”
That same thought has always been in my mind from the beginning, the sheer hypocrisy of the mask nazis. Selfishness is the first accusation leveled by them, whilst at the same time failing to see their own selfishness.
From what I can see the government has dropped the restrictions but now it becomes personal choice, so I’m expecting that we will follow the USA from this point, there are bound to be some bedwetters who will attempt to publicly shame or guilt trip someone for not ‘protecting’ them. Sainsbury’s, I heard a couple of weeks ago, has stated that it will be keeping the mask rules. Their gaff, their choice I suppose. Personally I don’t give a shit and if any retailer won’t let me in without a mask I can spend my money elsewhere. I’m just past arguing at this point.
Absolutely. Followed by my money, my choice.
Sainsbury’s haven’t made it a rule to continue wearing a muzzle in their shops. They requested it, but you’re free to decline. If you enter Sainsbury’s without a muzzle, their staff couldn’t give a stuff.
So what did they do before COVID-19 with other infectious diseases like flu?
Well, quite. This is a media driven scare, nothing more.
And bang on cue, they’ve found a new variant – ba.2.
You beat me to it on
“A trip to a shop enabled by everyone wearing masks and prescribed social distancing becomes too much of a risk when those measures disappear.”
Did they never leave home before summer 2020 when mask mandates implemented?
Me? Never worn one, I authorised myself as exempt
Authorised: I laugh at “Authorised … Only” signs. I authorise myself
Baaaaa! Baaaa!
They really are taking the mick.
Does anyone remember, right at the start of the pandemic, all those Chinese videos of people falling over, suspected dead, in the streets.
All disappeared without a grace and no one now mentions it. It’s as though it never happened. But there was clearly an agenda to create fear then, the ever-hysterical Daily Mail (whose output is now indistinguishable from the Sunday Sport) jumped on the bandwagon, screaming ‘xxxxx Dead’ every day for months, and Piers Morgan waggled his many chins to support the same agenda at the same time.
All forgotten his, though that same hysteria is currently ignoring the incontinent in the White House and the incompetent on the opposition benches in favour of wine bottles and birthday cakes.
There has never been a time when I felt more like a coup was underway. And that the same remainers who were the Treason May cabinet are all a part of it.
With Gove, of course. Always Gove.
So sad that so many people have been convinced to live in fear by idiots in the media. Reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQFUG9v6cvM
Mask wearing mandates have been dropped but I would estimate that three quarters of people are still wearing masks in the shops. I still see people walking outside, nowhere near anyone else, wearing them. I suppose that, as time goes on, it will make it as easy to identify idiots as it would if they were all wearing a pointy hat with a ‘D’ on it.
Round here they are very much in the minority.
Around here it’s a mixed picture – in an Aldi yesterday in a city suburbia, probably 90% were still masked, all types and ages. Today, in a countryside farming market-town 20 miles away, only 10% were masked (all quite elderly).
very mixed even in the same space: Sunday evensong in Sherborne Abbey only one mask to be seen, lunchtime organ recital on Monday mostly masked.
Always been minority here – Edinburgh, although all ages & demographics, but predominantly females
Saw an old woman today walking very slowly and stopping every minute. When she was close, noticed masked and panting. Idiot
SOMEwhere buried deep in my old files I have a short story that I wrote about 15ish years ago where one scene involves a mother and her small boy standing by a counter as the mom fills out a form at the bank.
The boy suddenly starts pulling on the mom’s skirt, with anxiety in his voice:
“Mom! Over there! That man walking to the window with the girl in it (i.e. a “teller’s window” in adult parlance) He’s NOT WEARING A MASK!”
At which point the mother scoops him up and either runs out of the bank or hides him behind her. ::sigh:: Wish I could find the dang thing for proper context!
– MJM, who sympathizes with the Mask folks, **BUT** who thinks that they’re inflicting an IMMENSE social disaster upon young adolescents who are missing the ingrained learning of facial expression social cues as they start moving beyond the family for friends. :/ This is something I’ve seen very little discussion of sadly.
I have mocked this sort of fear porn with the best of them, and my loathing for the charlatans and opportunists who have caused this great ruining. Well, it would run into volumes.
But I do know a few people who genuinely, truly believe they are in real danger. These are people I had always rather liked and respected. They are generally of my approximate vintage, and as such had the benefit of proper education and the freedoms we once all took for granted.
The younger unfortunates, I can to some degree understand, but those nearer to me in tree rings. Well it is downright exasperating. I’ve had a few conversations along the line of “I know you know this is complete bollocks, so why are you doing it?”
I’ve had various flavours of acknowledgement, often tacit, but more often it’s a sort of “better to be safe than sorry” (I’ve never mentioned how face nappies are germ incubators – actual facts, I suspect, are a bit out of place in such psychological drama).
The real question is, safe from what?
It’s just miasma theory come back to life, but this time the miasma is real and it’s not in the air. Don’t cover your face, cover your metaphorical ears! Get off soshul meeja, ignore the anti British bigotry commune.
Some pollutants really do rot the brain.
There does seem to be an inverse nature to this. Older people, whom I expected to know better fell hook line and sinker for the propaganda. Intelligent people too. I suppose being bombarded with the mantra that all the oldies will drop dead at the first hint of it, did the trick.
That may well be it.
My guess is it’s more because older people come from a time when politicians, scientists et al. were more trusted than they are today. Possibly actually more trustworthy as well if only because the standards around them were higher. Trust started to be lost when Mandy Rice-Davis pointed out that “he would say that, wouldn’t he”, and it’s been going down ever since.