TNC youth correspondent, Jack Watson, on the widespread reluctance to ditch masks.
Masks are no longer a mandatory requirement anywhere in the UK, except in some hospitals which have just started asking for them to be worn again. England dropped its mask requirement on 27 January 2022. Scotland and Wales kept masks for a bit longer. They are still a requirement in many parts of the Far East, and Germany is insisting they are used again. If you read my article in The Daily Sceptic then you will know my opinion on the stupidity of mask wearing, and how it has had no effect on preventing the spread of coronavirus. In fact, no scientific studies have ever shown that face masks are effective in stopping the spread of any infection. They were never advised to be worn in the first place, and it was not until the government was pressured into doing more by their advisers, that masks became mandatory. This is important, because it highlights the cause of government action in relation to the virus: not effective public healthcare, the pretence of public healthcare.
I recently went to an all you can eat place for lunch, and as soon as I stepped into the restaurant (East Asian cuisine) I saw that the staff (also East Asian) were wearing face coverings. I get that, maybe, they do not want to spread any germs onto the food. However, before the pandemic nobody wore a mask, and I fail to understand why they feel the need to do so now. The customers do not have to; therefore, they need to realise that they can do the same thing. China still has very strict restrictions re Covid, but I do not think that these apply to Chinese people living in the UK.
Even walking outside, where masks did not have to be worn, people still have them on, and a lot of these people are also East Asian. On my way back from the shops with my Grandad recently, we encountered countless people wearing masks. I asked my Grandad ‘why are people still wearing masks? I thought nobody had to wear them anymore’. His response was ‘I have no idea, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?’. There was never a rule about having to wear a mask outside and, unlike Hong Kong, the government never advised us to. So, I have no idea why people are still doing so. I am guessing that when they are inside, they take them off, therefore, they must have heard the opposite of what most of the country heard when they were mandatory. Either that or they were fooled into thinking that those pieces or cloth around their mouths prevented the spread. They have gaps at the sides, for breathing; therefore particles can still get into your mouth. It also looks like people simply chuck their old masks onto the street when they are finished with them – you can see them all over the place. I wonder what the health and environmental consequences are of that?
So, what is making people, and not only Chinese people, still want to wear something that we no longer have to wear, which does not work, and which is making a mess of our streets? Perhaps, many people have become ‘brainwashed’ into wearing and continuing to wear face masks. In East Asia, face masks have historically been used for the containment of viruses such as the flu, the common cold and SARS , despite the lack of evidence to support such a practice. In the UK, from July 2020 to January 2022 the wearing of masks became so normalised, perhaps people now feel more comfortable with them on. Maybe masks have become highly addictive, or perhaps it is simply the habit of virtue signalling people are unable to break. The problem is, wearing a mask may actually be more harmful than the supposed protection it provides. In fact, since so many people want us to all ‘follow the science’ then ALL the science should be on the table.
Wearing a mask causes me personal distress and physical breathing issues. Creating and supporting sustained mask mandates indicates that the charade of public health overrides my desire for actual health. Surely it is up to the individual to decide our own health needs, not partisan government officials? People need to accept how useless mask wearing is; it is dangerous and the masks themselves are completely ridiculous. I do not see why, or how, anybody could think these things could possibly work, or still want to wear them. If anybody can provide an answer, please let me know.
Jack Watson has a Substack newsletter called Ten Foot Tigers about being a Hull City fan. You can subscribe here.
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I have never worn a mask. It has been extremely difficult not to do so.
Long before Covid I once saw a group of orientals in London walking along a street wearing masks and the sight repulsed me – the same way that the sight of women wearing a burka offences me.
If they truly worked humans would have evolved differently – we’d have something akin to gills.
Maybe I see wearing a mask as a sign of cowardice or subjugation.
I am as baffled as you are, Jack. I moved to Scotland recently, which has a bad record on virtue-based mask wearing, thanks to its eedjit First Minister Sturgeon. Like you, wearing a mask causes me breathing difficulties – I am mildly asthmatic but control it with a breathing technique rather than meds, and a mask interferes with that (I have to be able to breathe freely through my nose). Wearing a mask induces panic, as does the sight of large numbers of people wearing them. I do think some people are addicted to them in some way, and to the virtue that they signal. Bizarrely, I often see people wearing them when not actually required, but not covering their nose. Am tempted to tell them to “just pop it up over their nose please” as so many little self-appointed Hitlers did to me during “the pandemic”.
Last week I went and registered at my local surgery (they were amazing by the way, let me have an appointment with a nurse for an ECG within an hour and saw the GP at 8.30 the next morning – not what I had been led to expect from “the NHS”!). But they asked me to “pop on a mask” when I came in, which I politely refused to do on both occasions. It takes nerve to stand your ground on this point, especially when the people concerned are being so helpful. But I know that deep down they know it is nonsense (the receptionists were taking their masks off when they thought no-one was looking). It is only by refusing to wear a mask in these settings that the staff concerned will start to think “perhaps we don’t need to be doing this”. You have to remember that some people will be giving you dirty looks because you are a granny-killer but the vast majority will be silently envious and wishing they had the nerve to take theirs off too.
Keep up the good work…
I lived in France between 2007 and 2022, during which time the French government passed a law banning the wearing of burqas or niqabs (or any kind of face covering) in public. This included men, of any ethnicity, but noone pretended that it targeted anyone other than Muslim women.
Come 2020, of course, we were legally obliged to cover our faces with these useless pieces of paper for the best part of two years.
Muslim women must have been laughing their socks off. Not that we could tell, because of the masks.
It’s neither cowardice nor subjugation, since nobody is telling them to wear masks any more. It’s their decision to do so, and I absolutely respect them for it. In return, I would ask them to respect my decision NOT to wear a mask and go against the grain at a time when every man and his dog has kowtowed to the state whenever this piece of absurd covid theatre gets rolled out again!
Hospitals may like you to think there is a mandate, but there is not. Their statements are phrased to give the impression that they are a requirement and that is publicised in the ever compliant msm. It baffles me that hospitals should know these items are totally useless and a potential hazard to the wearer yet still push for their use.