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I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenfo

I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenforced. 2 cases in particular stand out to me: Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to why you're not wearing a mask. Supermarkets continue to be rammed, but staff aren't required to wear masks. Nor are they enforcing the requirement on customers beyond the door. One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning. Wtf aren't staff required to wear masks? The attitude here is rapidly becoming "why should I bother if no one else is?". And frankly, I think the government know and encourage this. Its all but policy. Time and again we see them decline scientific advice, then act surprised when infection rates spike. I'm especially frustrated as my best friend lives in Melbourne. Despite lockdown starting at basically the same time, and some crazy bad luck/incidents, Melbourne is back to BAU.

dehrmann 6y ago
Masks might slow it, but they're everywhere in the Bay Area, and cases are rising faster than ever, and we're setting new records for new cases, so "just wear a mask in public" isn't enough.
- yibg 6y ago
  Isn’t slowing it the whole point, especially now with vaccines in the horizon? Slow it enough so that 1) hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and 2) less people die unnecessarily
  - vmception 6y ago
    the concept of velocity is too hard for people to grasp they need binary good/bad cause/effect edicts, like children. state and municipal governments are poorly catering to their own velocity based directives, and the juvenile more simplistic expectations of their population.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I don't know, Melbourne is A-Okay. They'd have been that way much earlier if it wasn't for one major super spreader event.
  - grey-area 6y ago
    Aggressive contact tracing works when the disease is at low levels.
    - LatteLazy 6y ago
      If only the UK had the same level of government as Melbourne and Singapore and Japan and South Korea and New Zealand and all the other places that did that...
      - CodeGlitch 6y ago
        I'm not sure that's completely fair. Countries vary so much that putting it down to "the government" ignores all the other factors. You're examples are all on the southern hemisphere, with mostly nice weather where people spend more time outside. General population health also has a massive effect. Here in the UK we are a nation of overweight old people, but fat-shaming is a thing so that's only going to get worse.
        mprovost 6y ago
        But those antipodean countries are all coming out of their winter. So they got through the worst of it during the coldest part of the year, with more people indoors, and only now are getting into summer.
        CodeGlitch 6y ago
        I'm not sure about those other countries, but an Australian "winter" is very different from a British winter. As I said - there are other factors here (many more than I mentioned) - that you can't compare countries so easily.
- burkaman 6y ago
  I think the argument is that masks are an essentially effortless tactic, and if people can't even bother to put them on and the government doesn't seem to care very much, then what hope is there for more effective measures? I don't live in the UK, just explaining how I read this comment.
  - timr 6y ago
    Lots of things are "effortless tactics". If they don't work, it's just superstition. People will figure it out, and they'll stop believing you. If you have indoor mask mandates, and outside mask mandates, and shut down restaurants, and curfews, etc., and your cases are still shooting up, you're going to have a hard time getting faith in your actions. So much of what governments are doing in response to this are just cargo cult science. We've had ample time to run proper controlled trials for much of this stuff -- the Danes were able to do so with masks [1], and there was a big study of gyms out of Norway [2] -- it's simply pathetic that our governments mostly haven't bothered. [1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.24.20138768v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.24.20138768v...
    - Retric 6y ago
      Masks can make a significant difference when new cases per infection is near 1. Dropping it from 3 to 2 doesn’t matter has that’s still heavy exponential growth, dropping it from 0.5 to 0.25 again doesn’t matter because it’s dropping fast. However dropping from 1.05 to even 0.95 is huge.
      - makomk 6y ago
        In theory, any tiny reduction in infection rate can make the decisive difference when the number of new infections from each existing infection is close enough to one. In practice, this is extremely unlikely to work in the real world because in reality, this is not some universal constant that is fixed at a particular value everywhere by some physical law - it varies from place to place, from job to job, from community to community, and the ones where it's below 1 will end up representing an exponentially smaller fraction of cases compared to the ones where it's above 1 meaning that the overall average won't stay below 1 for long. Treating R, the number of infections from each case, as though it was the same everywhere is just a way of simplifying the model, but the map is not the territory and we need to be a lot more careful about whether our simplifying assumptions change the overall behaviour of the system being modelled than we have been.
- 650REDHAIR 6y ago
  They aren’t everywhere in the Bay Area by a long shot. They aren’t even everywhere in SF...
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    Every store I've gone in has required them, I've heard mass transit is a lot less crowded and also requires them, and I think county rules mandate them in those cases. I've seen people without them going on outdoor walks, but that's an incredibly low-risk activity.
    - 650REDHAIR 6y ago
      Try smaller stores. Gas stations, corner stores, non-chain places. I see little to no compliance with customers or shop keepers in places like that. I also saw lots of maskless partying and social drinking in November.
      - dehrmann 6y ago
        > I also saw lots of maskless partying and social drinking in November. This is the bigger problem.
        morlockabove 6y ago
        Remember to snitch on your neighbours.
- asdff 6y ago
  Masks in public can only help so much when the major source of the spike in cases is individuals gathering in private settings without masks.
- standardUser 6y ago
  "so "just wear a mask in public" isn't enough." Did someone claim it was? The name of the game is and has always been suppressing the transmission rate of the virus. Masks are a low impact way to help a little bit towards that goal, nothing more.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    I was responding to someone in London saying they don't see most people wearing masks in public places. They didn't explicitly say it was enough, but since that was their main criticism of how London is responding, it read like that. Here's what Biden said: > The first day I'm inaugurated to say I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask, not forever. One hundred days. Again, he didn't say that wearing a mask is enough, but with the 100-day timeline, reading between the lines, he's saying it will drive down the case count.
    - morlockabove 6y ago
      Why do we care about the justification biden gives?
    - goatinaboat 6y ago
      Just 100 days to mask, not forever. One hundred days It started as just two weeks to flatten the curve, remember.
- bsder 6y ago
  Welcome to the Thanksgiving bump. People didn't listen and stay home. And, if they got together, they didn't wear masks. I got Covid from community transmission. I quarantined in my house, away from my wife, and wore a mask 24/7. She didn't get my Covid. Masks work, but people have to bloody well use them.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    > She didn't get my Covid. Out of curiosity, did she get tested? What about for antibodies?
    - bsder 6y ago
      Yes, she has been tested for active Covid about a half-dozen times with both the fast (15 min) and slower tests. We wanted to make extremely sure she wasn't an asymptomatic carrier who could give it to her elderly parents. She didn't get tested for antibodies as the health system has far more important things to deal with right now in the US, unfortunately.
  - irq11 6y ago
    I spent a week in a small apartment with someone who had symptomatic Covid. Close contact the whole time. Neither of us wore masks. I never got it. An anecdote means very little, and certainly is not evidence that masks work without controls for every other thing that might have prevented you from getting infected.
- lsllc 6y ago
  Same here in Massachusetts. Universal masking since May 6th, the governor even did away with "except of >6ft from others when outside rule" in the beginning of November, and we're seeing more cases than ever. Could it be ocular transmission? https://www.ajmc.com/view/can-wearing-eyeglasses-mitigate-covid-19-risk https://www.ajmc.com/view/can-wearing-eyeglasses-mitigate-co...
iamben 6y ago
Exactly my experiences in London. Crazy isn't it? I just don't think people even believe it's real. Half the people with a mask on TFL wear them over their chin or with their nose out anyway.
- luckman212 6y ago
  Not familiar with the TFL acronym - Google says "Transport for London" (underground train). Is that right?
  - HatchedLake721 6y ago
    Correct
  - pixxel 6y ago
    Yah.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - iamben 6y ago
    Yup, sorry. Basically the public transport network. So underground and overground trains and buses (mostly - they also licence the cabs and water taxis as well).
  - aserafini 6y ago
    Yes but also any public transport in London, eg. Buses are also ‘TfL’. And a few Thames taxis.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  The uk always has this 2 levels of laws: laws that are passed and laws that are enforced. When a new law is passed people watch to see whether its enforced. This law is not enforced, so it goes in the same category as speed limits. I remember the 2011 riots, courts were run 24h a day, sentences were extreme and people were tired and convicted the same day as the offense. That's very heavy handed. But that shows you the priority here. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-14487636 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-14487636
qz2 6y ago
I think the problem is that people don’t want to enforce it because 1 in 50 people you try this on are likely to go batshit insane almost instantly. No one wants to deal with that. At the end of the day this whole thing is dependent on the weakest link and there are a lot of weak links in society.
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
  I have been to Gran Canaria recently and good luck trying not wearing a mask in a shop over there :) I think the general more aggressive Spanish way of communicating helps a lot.
rweir 6y ago
> Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50% where? my counter-anecdote is I've taken to counting everyone on the carriage I'm on (between zone 2 and 1), and it's never more than 2-3 people without a mask, something like 90-95% compliance (seems down from a few months ago, though). in supermarkets it seems higher than that, to the extent I was quite weirded out to see a single person not wearing a mask last week.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  TFL Rail, the Eastern half, Romford, Chadwell Heath etc. To be fair, it got better on the central line. This was mid day not commuter rush. I do think East London is pretty poor at compliance culturally...
  - bsdz 6y ago
    This is my observation too. Compliance varies across different parts of London. I was quite surprised to be the only person wearing a mask in a busy Tesco Local in East London several weeks after they were first mandated. In comparison, in far South East London it's unusual to see someone without a mask shopping.
    - jibbit 6y ago
      The train i catch in SE London is travelling from tier 3 (Kent) to tier 2 (tiers as of the last few weeks). Despite travel out of a tier 3 are being 'advised against', the train is busy, 1/3 of people not wearing a mask, 1/3 not wearing it correctly, all the windows closed because it's 'cold'.
- cameronh90 6y ago
  It depends a lot on what time you take the train IME. At 8am it's nearly 100%, on a Friday evening it's closer to 20%. And of course on the rare occasion a staff member challenges someone not wearing a mask, they claim they're exempt and don't have to provide any proof.
- anonymousDan 6y ago
rhino369 6y ago
I'm pretty shocked staff in supermarket employees aren't required to wear masks in London. But this isn't really true: "One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning. Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them. Superspreading events can occur, but they are fairly rare. I bet supermarkets aren't big transmission vectors.
- tzs 6y ago
  > Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them ...if you are the only one around them who is infectious.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- js2 6y ago
  Or maybe just five minutes: > If you just want the results: one person (Case B) infected two other people (case A and C) from a distance away of 6.5 meters (~21 feet) and 4.8m (~15 feet). Case B and case A overlapped for just five minutes at quite a distance away. These people were well beyond the current 6 feet / 2 meter guidelines of CDC and much further than the current 3 feet / one meter distance advocated by the WHO. And they still transmitted the virus. https://zeynep.substack.com/p/small-data-big-implications https://zeynep.substack.com/p/small-data-big-implications
- EliRivers 6y ago
  Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them. Does that mean that someone has to breath in my virus for 15 minutes before there's enough of it inside them to infect them? Or does it mean that if I'm the infected staff member constantly spewing virus near an ever-changing cast of shoppers, I can expect to infect about 4 people an hour, some of whom were near me for only seconds?
throwaway4good 6y ago
Here in Germany everyone is wearing a mask within the mandated areas.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  My German tutor has declined politely to meet me since March. Cost him a fortune. Every other service provider is still open. My barber just texted to say we're still on for Monday.
- turing_complete 6y ago
  Except for Berlin.
pjc50 6y ago
> The attitude here is rapidly becoming "why should I bother if no one else is?". And frankly, I think the government know and encourage this. Its all but policy. Time and again we see them decline scientific advice, then act surprised when infection rates spike. They always believed in "herd immunity", so they're going to run with the minimum restrictions that achieve an ""acceptable"" death rate. We still don't have a great picture of what's driving the infections, due to the failure of track&trace. I suspect it's schools, universities, workplaces, and (unfortunately) hospitals, but I don't have handy evidence for that. Having Folkestone jammed with containers of undistributed PPE while the clock runs down to the Brexit logistics crisis isn't helping either. Anyway, the Tory public have been inexplicably satisfied with the performance so far, and are probably going to widely ignore the last-minute changes to Christmas rules.
- morlockabove 6y ago
  People are operating on instincts that amount to something like 'the choices are the 80-year olds die im five years instead of now, or we all ruin years of our lives and hand over more power to the petty little tyrants who thrive under lockdowns. Sorry, grandma, but you were on your way out, anyway'. Of course, that's not acceptable to say. Hence all the normal people say whatever they have to to get along and do otherwise (as usual) and True Believers are increasingly confused, angry, and disillusioned (as usual).
  - pjc50 6y ago
    There's a lot of under 80s who are now experiencing "long covid" semi-disabling symptoms weeks or months after infection. I know a few personally. Getting the measures right gets rid of covid and lets people get back to normal. Bad measures give the worst of both worlds, prolonging the problem.
    - morlockabove 6y ago
      'Getting the measures right' would require some mix of unity (which doesn't exist in modern multicultural countries) and/or a strong authoritarian government. If, for some reason, you like not having indigenous racial minorities sent to re-education camps while you're not looking, then those options aren't really available. If there were a country with the nerve to have no 'measures' at all, they would have herd immunity, a pile of corpses, some long-term health conditions from covid (that we will have, too- everyone's getting this thing), no long-term health conditions from everyone being locked in their homes for a year, no year+ fucking of the economy, less consolidation of wealth into the hands of a few, less of an immediate risk of an increase in authoritarianism via increasing the power of the local government... For some size of 'a discrepancy in the pile of corpses (from this year)', I would, if I could push a button and switch to the world where people were left to do as they may, push it. A lot of people would, too, it's just too callous and inhuman to admit that yeah, sorry, if you're 85 and going to die in 3 years from the flu anyway your continued life might not be worth the price of greatly inconveniencing a 25-year-old for a year.
vmception 6y ago
It is so fascinating how some cultures are just ready for different environments on this planet. Authoritative collectivist monocultures are doing great with this pandemic, and that is practically the only combination that has a grip on things.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Australia?
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Also New Zealand? Our (UK) response has been a bit of a clusterfuck so far, we're not a good example to judge by.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      Indeed. We could have chosen to be an island, but that would have meant quarantining business travel.
      - mhh__ 6y ago
        The comedy of errors around the government has probably been worse though. Barnard Castle alone probably killed thousands, the way this government is doing contracts is probably criminal, we fucked up the T&T for months etc. etc. etc. etc.
        ljm 6y ago
        A comedy of errors assumes some level of ignorance or carelessness, but we have 10 years (and counting) of empirical evidence that this government is acting out of nothing but self-preservation and malice. Voting Mr Bean into office would constitute a comedy of errors; but what we have now (when you also throw Brexit into the mix) is far from funny.
      - makomk 6y ago
        It'd also have meant severing food supply chains (and probably also medical supply chains and a bunch of others). The UK relies on trucks coming across from the continent and continuing on to destinations throughout the country with their original drivers. Ending that would make Brexit look like a walk in the park by comparison. Also, you've got to remember that the time period during which the UK would've had to do this for it to be effective was one where the WHO and all the right-thinking people were insisting that border restrictions were counterproductive, xenophobic and made things worse, something Trump would do, and when Italy still incorrectly believed they had zero cases.
randomsearch 6y ago
This is mostly hugely speculative. Australia is in summer, so it would make more sense to compare it to the UK’s summer, if you insist on comparing two countries with very different population densities (a key factor in the spread of COVID-19).
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I'd say that counts against the UK: The UK failed to control this DESPITE lovely weather meaning people don't mind meeting outside and schools being shut anyway. Australia battled this through their winter and won despite the outdoors being basicly shut...
- robbiep 6y ago
  During Melbourne’s winter, Melbourne was reporting the same number of cases a day as the UK in summer. [0] https://twitter.com/drdeannechiu/status/1322834922269073408?s=21 https://twitter.com/drdeannechiu/status/1322834922269073408?... [1] https://twitter.com/drericlevi/status/1322822297867018240?s=21 https://twitter.com/drericlevi/status/1322822297867018240?s=... yes I know I posted essentially the same information to two comments, I apologise for the spam
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    My point was, the comparison was invalid due to the seasons but _the comparison is invalid anyway because the two countries are extremely different_.
- elyobo 6y ago
  Population densities are not wildly different between the two countries if you realise that most of Australia is effectively unpopulated and the vast majority live in a handful of metropolitan areas.
djaychela 6y ago
>Supermarkets continue to be rammed, but staff aren't required to wear masks. I don't think this has been the case since September. Admittedly too late, IMO, but I think it has been the law since then.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I was literally in Dagenham Morrisons 30 minutes, only 2 staff had masks, one was wearing his around his neck.
  - willyt 6y ago
    Dagenham is quite a right-wing area? People with right-wing views seems to have been targeted with anti-mask and anti-lockdown misinformation on social media.
- arpinum 6y ago
  Was in Morrison’s last week, employees without masks chatting each other up
dboreham 6y ago
Wow. Here in deepest Republican middle America mask wearing by _staff_ in supermarkets is universal. Customers around 90% if you count "nose-slingers" as non compliant. Pretty much nobody just swanning around with no mask these days. Costco has heavy mask enforcement -- they will hunt down and eject anyone with their nose out. Where masks are not worn here is in smaller family owned businesses. Some have notices requiring masks on the door, some (many) do not, even though it's a state mandate. Since this is the US, we have no public transport so I can't comment on that.
- fakedang 6y ago
  I was on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Frankfurt last month. The moron in the next counter traveling to Paris literally told the check-in counter employees that he had Covid and asked whether he could travel. I don't know, I'd like to call this Angevin idiocy or something. But yeah, Europe does have its fair share of covidiots too.
- curiousllama 6y ago
  "nose slingers"
  - smcl 6y ago
    That’s a nice phrase. In my group we called it “dick-nosing” - iirc it came about due to: 1) you wouldn’t (shouldn’t?) go around with your dick hanging out of your trousers, so why would you do the same with your nose and your mask 2) you’re a dick if you do this
    - MaulingMonkey 6y ago
      A decent amount of it is unintentional I suspect. Subconcious fiddling, poor feeling / awareness of slipping masks... a gentle reminder that "your mask has slipped a bit" can do wonders.
      - yissp 6y ago
anigbrowl 6y ago
> Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to why you're not wearing a mask. Is it policy for the officers to pull one out and say 'you do now'?
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Not that I saw. Supermarkets do that sometimes at the door and good for them. But at this point, I'm tired of people "forgetting". I think it's time for actual enforcement.
paulnechifor 6y ago
> "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to why you're not wearing a mask. I haven't worn a mask twice. Once because I forgot it and once because I just forgot to put it on. If "I don't have one" isn't an acceptable excuse what am I supposed to do: produce one out of thin air? It's not like they give out free ones if you forget. There are so many signs now that they're basically invisible. If I'm fined for not wearing it I'll stop wearing it entirely.
- standardUser 6y ago
  "It's not like they give out free ones if you forget." Why the hell not? Seems like the very first thing they should be doing.
- AndrewDavis 6y ago
  Offer you one and then fine you. Seriously, don't forget and if you're forgetful then prepare early I have one in my car, a spare in my backpack, keep one in my jacket pocket, and a cheap disposable in my wallet folded up. That way if I forget, I'll have one. My city in Australia had a grace period for everyone to get a mask. After that a lot of fines were handed out. Without fines I doubt we'd have seen compliance anywhere near as high because there are a lot of people who don't want to wear them but do because they fear the fine.
  - xyzzy123 6y ago
    There's also a social tipping point sort of thing that happens, and fines help with that. When hardly anyone is wearing a mask you feel a bit weird or silly. When half the people are wearing masks you look at the people who are and aren't and can't help but wonder which side is your in-group. When fines are enforced, everyone has an "excuse" to wear a mask. Darn fines. Then, when everyone is wearing a mask you feel naked if you don't have one. Only the seriously anti-social will defect.
- happymellon 6y ago
  > If "I don't have one" isn't an acceptable excuse what am I supposed to do How is it that after nearly 10 months of this would you not have a mask? Do you also think that "sorry officer, I didn't realise that getting completely sloshed and then driving was illegal, what am I supposed to to? Suddenly sober up?" > If I'm fined for not wearing it I'll stop wearing it entirely. This makes absolutely no sense. So you want to be fined daily because you got fined once for not wearing a mask during a pandemic? And people don't understand why it's spreading so much. That's like saying > I was fined for dangerous driving, and because of this I'm now only going to drive on the wrong side of the road.
jonplackett 6y ago
Also in London and 100% agree. I’ve barely been to a shop in 8 months because of this. For some reason we can manage to prevent drunk agro people entering a club with the wrong shoes, but 8 months into a pandemic we can’t make people wear a bloody mask? It’s insane. The government are partly to blame for making rules so haphazardly that even someone like me who reads EVERYTHING and wants to do the right thing 100% of the time finds them hard to be sure of. But ultimately people have to start taking the blame for not even doing the basics or following the letter of the law but not the spirit - nose slingers are the prime example of this. I’ve just decided to go my own much more stringent path and ignore dumb government advice.
- pjc50 6y ago
  I've heard how to wear an aircraft oxygen mask a hundred times in my life but never a PSA on how to wear a COVID mask. One I hope never to do and the other I do every week at least.
  - lumberingjack 6y ago
    This I have MOPP training and just flew though two airports I saw 0 people probably useing a mask.
- gotaran 6y ago
  > For some reason we can manage to prevent drunk agro people entering a club with the wrong shoes At least in the US, dress codes in nightclubs exist as a deterrent to individuals with gang affiliations. It's pretty racist. Guess which race anti-maskers are predominantly.
- spoopyskelly 6y ago
  > Also in London and 100% agree. I’ve barely been to a shop in 8 months because of this. You should go to a shrink.
DanBC 6y ago
For people not familiar with London train stations: they're huge and can be very busy. Here's video from one (St Pancras, about 35m people per normal year) today: https://twitter.com/scattermoon/status/1340393706009079812?s=20 https://twitter.com/scattermoon/status/1340393706009079812?s... Most people appear to be wearing masks, but still it's not ideal.
Veen 6y ago
> One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning That is an enormous over-exaggeration. It's a virus, not a magic spell. Plus, employees are not required to wear masks, but customers are. > Time and again we see them decline scientific advice Which scientific advice have they declined? So far as I can see, Boris is entirely under the influence of SAGE and does nothing without "scientific advice".
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  >employees are not required to wear masks That's exactly my point. He ignored calls for a September "circuit breaker", then had to panic in October. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/world/boris-johnson-ignored-scientists-advice-for-a-brief-national-lockdown.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/world/boris-johnson-ignor... This article lists a host of other times scientists have been ignored then proven right: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-government-boris-johnson-science-advisors https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-government-boris-johnson-...
beaker52 6y ago
Also a Londoner. Whilst I've observed greater mask compliance, shops, cafes, bars and restaurants have been packed. I've been to bars freely serving alcohol with no need to buy food, just like the old days. Definitely seeing rule breaking. And I've had a friend who wanted to beat the travel restrictions by leaving London before midnight. That's rule beating. I see it everywhere. A PSA because it's important: I can promise future you would rather remember "dang, do you remember that shit Christmas we had to stay home?" over "dang, do you remember that shit Christmas that someone accidentally gave Mum covid and she died because we REALLY wanted Christmas with the family in the middle of a pandemic". It really isn't worth it. Not right now. Just be patient and wait.
- morlockabove 6y ago
  Go and gather in groups where all are below 50 with no underlying conditions, instead.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Some of you will still get Long Covid, which may leave you with permanent breathing issues and other health problems. The biggest lie is that if you're under 30 you're immune. You're not - not even slightly. You're far less likely to die than someone who is 85 and obese with diabetes and high blood pressure. But no one knows what the long term health implications are for younger people who make a partial recovery. And there's been a non-negligible number of those.
    - hknapp 6y ago
      This is interesting. What are the stats (percentages) on those who get "Long Covid" by age group?
      - renaudg 6y ago
        I don't have the age breakdown but serious/long Covid is about 15% of cases, which is potentially millions of people in most countries if we let the epidemic rip through. Symptoms include mental fog, loss of concentration, extreme fatigue, loss of smell.. This is why the idea of chasing herd immunity without a vaccine has always been misguided
twic 6y ago
See table 2 in the most recent weekly national COVID-19 surveillance report [1], which breaks down where outbreaks have happened. In London, there were 220 outbreaks last week: Educational 108 Hospital 42 Care home 38 Workplace 20 Other 10 Prisons 1 Food outlet/restaurant 1 This is outbreaks, not infections - i don't think we have statistics on that, so this is the best indication we have of where the virus is spreading. Schools, hospitals, care homes, and workplaces account for the huge majority of spread. There's no empirical reason to think either tube trains or supermarkets are the problem. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-co...
- 317070 6y ago
  One needs to be careful with such statistics though. The Netherlands had similar numbers but luckily also reported they could only trace 20% of the outbreaks. And that puts things in a very different perspective. Of the traced outbreaks, most were in schools. But that is not really a surprise, as outbreaks in schools are really easy to trace. If you have a group of 25 students which basically spend 40 hours a week together and they all get sick, super obvious. But how do you trace clients of a restaurant back to a restaurant? You mostly don't. My reading of these lists is as a mix between places that are easy to trace, and places where really a lot of infections are happening. It is hard to tell which are which and which are both. Not to mention where the other missing 80% of cases came from.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Edit, ignore the next paragraph, I was looking at this week vs last wekk... Weirdly I see slightly different numbers... Table 2 on page number 26 of the first pdf? Sorry if I'm looking in the wrong place... Either way, I think this relies on contact tracing data, but contact tracing doesn't happen on trains or in supermarkets (super markets are exempt why exactly? No one knows). That's why their zeros...
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
andyjohnson0 6y ago
> Supermarkets continue to be rammed, but staff aren't required to wear masks. The wearing of masks by retail employees has been mandatory in England since 24th September [1]. Up here in Manchester I don't recall seeing any supermarket workers not wearing them. I can easily believe that conditions in London are different though. [1] https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/09/face-masks-made-compulsory-for-retail-workers-from-this-week/ https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/09/face-masks-made...
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I'll take some pics next time. As I say, we have a huge enforcement gap here.
  - rjsw 6y ago
    I'm also in Manchester, haven't seen anyone without a mask in a shop for a long time.
DenisM 6y ago
> One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning Is that really so? As I recall the viral load has to cross a minimal threshold before infection develops, and even then the lower the load the milder the illness. A store employee with his mouth shut whom you pass by in about 3 seconds is a far cry from someone who is singing at you at 10 ft distance for an hour, or eating and chatting for that same hour.
OJFord 6y ago
I live in London, and I couldn't tell you what it's like on the tube or in shops; interesting to hear. But, probably you're also a software engineer working from home, so if it bothers you, how are you able to tell me? I assume the large majority of tube users are the non compliant, simply because so few of the compliant have any reason to actually need to use the tube, so your 50% doesn't surprise me at all, certainly not that it's low.
abraxas 6y ago
Elections have consequences.
JimTheMan 6y ago
I had friends living in London come back home to Australia. (2 weeks in mandatory hotel quarantine on entry) Apparently the enforcement and compliance with the rules is night and day different here. They described London as a place with rules that everyone just ignores.
lordnacho 6y ago
I'm in the home counties around London, and I can see something similar. I actually ran into a pair of covid guards from the council, the only time I've seen them, and I kid you not they had their noses over their masks. The rules stopped being followed some time ago, and I'll tell you why. We can't believe in the government anymore, and it's because there's been too many cases of one rule for the people, one for the rulers. Multiple government level staff have been caught breaking the rules. Cummings was maybe the most egregious case, a known positive driving hundreds of miles to his parents, who is then protected by the PM from sacking. On top of that, when he actually did get sacked it was due to a petty internal power struggle months later, with no mention of the breach. Then there was the scientist with the affair, the MP who took the train back to Scotland, and so on. Plus stories of cronyism in who was given contracts to service the covid needs. I can see why people think the rules are a theatre. They obviously don't think the rules matter, or that it matters whether we get the required projects done by competent people. We elected a talker to waffle his way through the Brexit negotiations. That would have worked, because those treaties are impenetrable to normal people; He can do a bit of clever rhetoric to talk up this or that point, and nobody is any wiser because they won't know what it's like to be a cheese import business with no voice in the media. Now the game is up, because you can't talk your way out of a global pandemic, it's too far from normal politics to have practiced stepping around.
da39a3ee 6y ago
Why are religious gatherings exempt? That seems utterly irrational. Surely now of all times is a time for the government to say to religious people “sorry, but we can’t pretend to respect your fantasies right now”.
LatteLazy 6y ago
[Replying to my own comment] Just been to the Tesco at Roneo Corner in Havering (1 borough further out than Barking and Dageham). 38 customers without a mask inside the store (excludes kids even teens, excludes anyone with a pointless visor, excludes anyone with a green and yellow lanyard which means they're exempt). 8 members of staff without a mask (again, excluding as above). Highlights include: * a woman in Islamic dress with a head scarf and eye veil, she had covered every inch of her skin EXCEPT for her mouth and nose. * a staff member with a managers badge and no mask * a parent who took off his mask and gave it to his baby to play with once he was inside * an aisle with about 40 people crammed in looking at the discount section with a staff member with no mask holding a "2m social distance" sign and getting in people's way, but not stopping them or asking anyone to move on!?
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  That's such a contrast to my area (rural Oxfordshire), I haven't seen a maskless customer in a supermarket since the rule came in.
747cwd 6y ago
I agree with every word 100%. Shops, supermarkets, staff, even an NHS clinic allowed someone to talk to reception without a mask..I have asked managers if they are comfortable with the staggering non compliance. “I’ll lose my job” has been their reply. Not surprising a “new strain” has developed.

dehrmann 6y ago

Masks might slow it, but they're everywhere in the Bay Area, and cases are rising faster than ever, and we're setting new records for new cases, so "just wear a mask in public" isn't enough.

yibg 6y ago
Isn’t slowing it the whole point, especially now with vaccines in the horizon? Slow it enough so that 1) hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and 2) less people die unnecessarily
- vmception 6y ago
  the concept of velocity is too hard for people to grasp they need binary good/bad cause/effect edicts, like children. state and municipal governments are poorly catering to their own velocity based directives, and the juvenile more simplistic expectations of their population.
LatteLazy 6y ago
I don't know, Melbourne is A-Okay. They'd have been that way much earlier if it wasn't for one major super spreader event.
- grey-area 6y ago
  Aggressive contact tracing works when the disease is at low levels.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    If only the UK had the same level of government as Melbourne and Singapore and Japan and South Korea and New Zealand and all the other places that did that...
    - CodeGlitch 6y ago
      I'm not sure that's completely fair. Countries vary so much that putting it down to "the government" ignores all the other factors. You're examples are all on the southern hemisphere, with mostly nice weather where people spend more time outside. General population health also has a massive effect. Here in the UK we are a nation of overweight old people, but fat-shaming is a thing so that's only going to get worse.
      - mprovost 6y ago
        But those antipodean countries are all coming out of their winter. So they got through the worst of it during the coldest part of the year, with more people indoors, and only now are getting into summer.
        CodeGlitch 6y ago
        I'm not sure about those other countries, but an Australian "winter" is very different from a British winter. As I said - there are other factors here (many more than I mentioned) - that you can't compare countries so easily.
burkaman 6y ago
I think the argument is that masks are an essentially effortless tactic, and if people can't even bother to put them on and the government doesn't seem to care very much, then what hope is there for more effective measures? I don't live in the UK, just explaining how I read this comment.
- timr 6y ago
  Lots of things are "effortless tactics". If they don't work, it's just superstition. People will figure it out, and they'll stop believing you. If you have indoor mask mandates, and outside mask mandates, and shut down restaurants, and curfews, etc., and your cases are still shooting up, you're going to have a hard time getting faith in your actions. So much of what governments are doing in response to this are just cargo cult science. We've had ample time to run proper controlled trials for much of this stuff -- the Danes were able to do so with masks [1], and there was a big study of gyms out of Norway [2] -- it's simply pathetic that our governments mostly haven't bothered. [1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.24.20138768v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.24.20138768v...
  - Retric 6y ago
    Masks can make a significant difference when new cases per infection is near 1. Dropping it from 3 to 2 doesn’t matter has that’s still heavy exponential growth, dropping it from 0.5 to 0.25 again doesn’t matter because it’s dropping fast. However dropping from 1.05 to even 0.95 is huge.
    - makomk 6y ago
      In theory, any tiny reduction in infection rate can make the decisive difference when the number of new infections from each existing infection is close enough to one. In practice, this is extremely unlikely to work in the real world because in reality, this is not some universal constant that is fixed at a particular value everywhere by some physical law - it varies from place to place, from job to job, from community to community, and the ones where it's below 1 will end up representing an exponentially smaller fraction of cases compared to the ones where it's above 1 meaning that the overall average won't stay below 1 for long. Treating R, the number of infections from each case, as though it was the same everywhere is just a way of simplifying the model, but the map is not the territory and we need to be a lot more careful about whether our simplifying assumptions change the overall behaviour of the system being modelled than we have been.
650REDHAIR 6y ago
They aren’t everywhere in the Bay Area by a long shot. They aren’t even everywhere in SF...
- dehrmann 6y ago
  Every store I've gone in has required them, I've heard mass transit is a lot less crowded and also requires them, and I think county rules mandate them in those cases. I've seen people without them going on outdoor walks, but that's an incredibly low-risk activity.
  - 650REDHAIR 6y ago
    Try smaller stores. Gas stations, corner stores, non-chain places. I see little to no compliance with customers or shop keepers in places like that. I also saw lots of maskless partying and social drinking in November.
    - dehrmann 6y ago
      > I also saw lots of maskless partying and social drinking in November. This is the bigger problem.
      - morlockabove 6y ago
        Remember to snitch on your neighbours.
asdff 6y ago
Masks in public can only help so much when the major source of the spike in cases is individuals gathering in private settings without masks.
standardUser 6y ago
"so "just wear a mask in public" isn't enough." Did someone claim it was? The name of the game is and has always been suppressing the transmission rate of the virus. Masks are a low impact way to help a little bit towards that goal, nothing more.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  I was responding to someone in London saying they don't see most people wearing masks in public places. They didn't explicitly say it was enough, but since that was their main criticism of how London is responding, it read like that. Here's what Biden said: > The first day I'm inaugurated to say I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask, not forever. One hundred days. Again, he didn't say that wearing a mask is enough, but with the 100-day timeline, reading between the lines, he's saying it will drive down the case count.
  - morlockabove 6y ago
    Why do we care about the justification biden gives?
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    Just 100 days to mask, not forever. One hundred days It started as just two weeks to flatten the curve, remember.
bsder 6y ago
Welcome to the Thanksgiving bump. People didn't listen and stay home. And, if they got together, they didn't wear masks. I got Covid from community transmission. I quarantined in my house, away from my wife, and wore a mask 24/7. She didn't get my Covid. Masks work, but people have to bloody well use them.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  > She didn't get my Covid. Out of curiosity, did she get tested? What about for antibodies?
  - bsder 6y ago
    Yes, she has been tested for active Covid about a half-dozen times with both the fast (15 min) and slower tests. We wanted to make extremely sure she wasn't an asymptomatic carrier who could give it to her elderly parents. She didn't get tested for antibodies as the health system has far more important things to deal with right now in the US, unfortunately.
- irq11 6y ago
  I spent a week in a small apartment with someone who had symptomatic Covid. Close contact the whole time. Neither of us wore masks. I never got it. An anecdote means very little, and certainly is not evidence that masks work without controls for every other thing that might have prevented you from getting infected.
lsllc 6y ago
Same here in Massachusetts. Universal masking since May 6th, the governor even did away with "except of >6ft from others when outside rule" in the beginning of November, and we're seeing more cases than ever. Could it be ocular transmission? https://www.ajmc.com/view/can-wearing-eyeglasses-mitigate-covid-19-risk https://www.ajmc.com/view/can-wearing-eyeglasses-mitigate-co...

iamben 6y ago

Exactly my experiences in London. Crazy isn't it? I just don't think people even believe it's real. Half the people with a mask on TFL wear them over their chin or with their nose out anyway.

luckman212 6y ago
Not familiar with the TFL acronym - Google says "Transport for London" (underground train). Is that right?
- HatchedLake721 6y ago
  Correct
- pixxel 6y ago
  Yah.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- iamben 6y ago
  Yup, sorry. Basically the public transport network. So underground and overground trains and buses (mostly - they also licence the cabs and water taxis as well).
- aserafini 6y ago
  Yes but also any public transport in London, eg. Buses are also ‘TfL’. And a few Thames taxis.
LatteLazy 6y ago
The uk always has this 2 levels of laws: laws that are passed and laws that are enforced. When a new law is passed people watch to see whether its enforced. This law is not enforced, so it goes in the same category as speed limits. I remember the 2011 riots, courts were run 24h a day, sentences were extreme and people were tired and convicted the same day as the offense. That's very heavy handed. But that shows you the priority here. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-14487636 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-14487636

qz2 6y ago

I think the problem is that people don’t want to enforce it because 1 in 50 people you try this on are likely to go batshit insane almost instantly. No one wants to deal with that. At the end of the day this whole thing is dependent on the weakest link and there are a lot of weak links in society.

heavenlyblue 6y ago
I have been to Gran Canaria recently and good luck trying not wearing a mask in a shop over there :) I think the general more aggressive Spanish way of communicating helps a lot.

rweir 6y ago

> Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50% where? my counter-anecdote is I've taken to counting everyone on the carriage I'm on (between zone 2 and 1), and it's never more than 2-3 people without a mask, something like 90-95% compliance (seems down from a few months ago, though). in supermarkets it seems higher than that, to the extent I was quite weirded out to see a single person not wearing a mask last week.

LatteLazy 6y ago
TFL Rail, the Eastern half, Romford, Chadwell Heath etc. To be fair, it got better on the central line. This was mid day not commuter rush. I do think East London is pretty poor at compliance culturally...
- bsdz 6y ago
  This is my observation too. Compliance varies across different parts of London. I was quite surprised to be the only person wearing a mask in a busy Tesco Local in East London several weeks after they were first mandated. In comparison, in far South East London it's unusual to see someone without a mask shopping.
  - jibbit 6y ago
    The train i catch in SE London is travelling from tier 3 (Kent) to tier 2 (tiers as of the last few weeks). Despite travel out of a tier 3 are being 'advised against', the train is busy, 1/3 of people not wearing a mask, 1/3 not wearing it correctly, all the windows closed because it's 'cold'.
cameronh90 6y ago
It depends a lot on what time you take the train IME. At 8am it's nearly 100%, on a Friday evening it's closer to 20%. And of course on the rare occasion a staff member challenges someone not wearing a mask, they claim they're exempt and don't have to provide any proof.
anonymousDan 6y ago

rhino369 6y ago

I'm pretty shocked staff in supermarket employees aren't required to wear masks in London. But this isn't really true: "One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning. Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them. Superspreading events can occur, but they are fairly rare. I bet supermarkets aren't big transmission vectors.

tzs 6y ago
> Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them ...if you are the only one around them who is infectious.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
js2 6y ago
Or maybe just five minutes: > If you just want the results: one person (Case B) infected two other people (case A and C) from a distance away of 6.5 meters (~21 feet) and 4.8m (~15 feet). Case B and case A overlapped for just five minutes at quite a distance away. These people were well beyond the current 6 feet / 2 meter guidelines of CDC and much further than the current 3 feet / one meter distance advocated by the WHO. And they still transmitted the virus. https://zeynep.substack.com/p/small-data-big-implications https://zeynep.substack.com/p/small-data-big-implications
EliRivers 6y ago
Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them. Does that mean that someone has to breath in my virus for 15 minutes before there's enough of it inside them to infect them? Or does it mean that if I'm the infected staff member constantly spewing virus near an ever-changing cast of shoppers, I can expect to infect about 4 people an hour, some of whom were near me for only seconds?

throwaway4good 6y ago

Here in Germany everyone is wearing a mask within the mandated areas.

LatteLazy 6y ago
My German tutor has declined politely to meet me since March. Cost him a fortune. Every other service provider is still open. My barber just texted to say we're still on for Monday.
turing_complete 6y ago
Except for Berlin.

pjc50 6y ago

> The attitude here is rapidly becoming "why should I bother if no one else is?". And frankly, I think the government know and encourage this. Its all but policy. Time and again we see them decline scientific advice, then act surprised when infection rates spike. They always believed in "herd immunity", so they're going to run with the minimum restrictions that achieve an ""acceptable"" death rate. We still don't have a great picture of what's driving the infections, due to the failure of track&trace. I suspect it's schools, universities, workplaces, and (unfortunately) hospitals, but I don't have handy evidence for that. Having Folkestone jammed with containers of undistributed PPE while the clock runs down to the Brexit logistics crisis isn't helping either. Anyway, the Tory public have been inexplicably satisfied with the performance so far, and are probably going to widely ignore the last-minute changes to Christmas rules.

morlockabove 6y ago
People are operating on instincts that amount to something like 'the choices are the 80-year olds die im five years instead of now, or we all ruin years of our lives and hand over more power to the petty little tyrants who thrive under lockdowns. Sorry, grandma, but you were on your way out, anyway'. Of course, that's not acceptable to say. Hence all the normal people say whatever they have to to get along and do otherwise (as usual) and True Believers are increasingly confused, angry, and disillusioned (as usual).
- pjc50 6y ago
  There's a lot of under 80s who are now experiencing "long covid" semi-disabling symptoms weeks or months after infection. I know a few personally. Getting the measures right gets rid of covid and lets people get back to normal. Bad measures give the worst of both worlds, prolonging the problem.
  - morlockabove 6y ago
    'Getting the measures right' would require some mix of unity (which doesn't exist in modern multicultural countries) and/or a strong authoritarian government. If, for some reason, you like not having indigenous racial minorities sent to re-education camps while you're not looking, then those options aren't really available. If there were a country with the nerve to have no 'measures' at all, they would have herd immunity, a pile of corpses, some long-term health conditions from covid (that we will have, too- everyone's getting this thing), no long-term health conditions from everyone being locked in their homes for a year, no year+ fucking of the economy, less consolidation of wealth into the hands of a few, less of an immediate risk of an increase in authoritarianism via increasing the power of the local government... For some size of 'a discrepancy in the pile of corpses (from this year)', I would, if I could push a button and switch to the world where people were left to do as they may, push it. A lot of people would, too, it's just too callous and inhuman to admit that yeah, sorry, if you're 85 and going to die in 3 years from the flu anyway your continued life might not be worth the price of greatly inconveniencing a 25-year-old for a year.

vmception 6y ago

It is so fascinating how some cultures are just ready for different environments on this planet. Authoritative collectivist monocultures are doing great with this pandemic, and that is practically the only combination that has a grip on things.

pjc50 6y ago
Australia?
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Also New Zealand? Our (UK) response has been a bit of a clusterfuck so far, we're not a good example to judge by.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Indeed. We could have chosen to be an island, but that would have meant quarantining business travel.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      The comedy of errors around the government has probably been worse though. Barnard Castle alone probably killed thousands, the way this government is doing contracts is probably criminal, we fucked up the T&T for months etc. etc. etc. etc.
      - ljm 6y ago
        A comedy of errors assumes some level of ignorance or carelessness, but we have 10 years (and counting) of empirical evidence that this government is acting out of nothing but self-preservation and malice. Voting Mr Bean into office would constitute a comedy of errors; but what we have now (when you also throw Brexit into the mix) is far from funny.
    - makomk 6y ago
      It'd also have meant severing food supply chains (and probably also medical supply chains and a bunch of others). The UK relies on trucks coming across from the continent and continuing on to destinations throughout the country with their original drivers. Ending that would make Brexit look like a walk in the park by comparison. Also, you've got to remember that the time period during which the UK would've had to do this for it to be effective was one where the WHO and all the right-thinking people were insisting that border restrictions were counterproductive, xenophobic and made things worse, something Trump would do, and when Italy still incorrectly believed they had zero cases.

randomsearch 6y ago

This is mostly hugely speculative. Australia is in summer, so it would make more sense to compare it to the UK’s summer, if you insist on comparing two countries with very different population densities (a key factor in the spread of COVID-19).

LatteLazy 6y ago
I'd say that counts against the UK: The UK failed to control this DESPITE lovely weather meaning people don't mind meeting outside and schools being shut anyway. Australia battled this through their winter and won despite the outdoors being basicly shut...
robbiep 6y ago
During Melbourne’s winter, Melbourne was reporting the same number of cases a day as the UK in summer. [0] https://twitter.com/drdeannechiu/status/1322834922269073408?s=21 https://twitter.com/drdeannechiu/status/1322834922269073408?... [1] https://twitter.com/drericlevi/status/1322822297867018240?s=21 https://twitter.com/drericlevi/status/1322822297867018240?s=... yes I know I posted essentially the same information to two comments, I apologise for the spam
- randomsearch 6y ago
  My point was, the comparison was invalid due to the seasons but _the comparison is invalid anyway because the two countries are extremely different_.
elyobo 6y ago
Population densities are not wildly different between the two countries if you realise that most of Australia is effectively unpopulated and the vast majority live in a handful of metropolitan areas.

djaychela 6y ago

>Supermarkets continue to be rammed, but staff aren't required to wear masks. I don't think this has been the case since September. Admittedly too late, IMO, but I think it has been the law since then.

LatteLazy 6y ago
I was literally in Dagenham Morrisons 30 minutes, only 2 staff had masks, one was wearing his around his neck.
- willyt 6y ago
  Dagenham is quite a right-wing area? People with right-wing views seems to have been targeted with anti-mask and anti-lockdown misinformation on social media.
arpinum 6y ago
Was in Morrison’s last week, employees without masks chatting each other up

dboreham 6y ago

Wow. Here in deepest Republican middle America mask wearing by _staff_ in supermarkets is universal. Customers around 90% if you count "nose-slingers" as non compliant. Pretty much nobody just swanning around with no mask these days. Costco has heavy mask enforcement -- they will hunt down and eject anyone with their nose out. Where masks are not worn here is in smaller family owned businesses. Some have notices requiring masks on the door, some (many) do not, even though it's a state mandate. Since this is the US, we have no public transport so I can't comment on that.

fakedang 6y ago
I was on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Frankfurt last month. The moron in the next counter traveling to Paris literally told the check-in counter employees that he had Covid and asked whether he could travel. I don't know, I'd like to call this Angevin idiocy or something. But yeah, Europe does have its fair share of covidiots too.
curiousllama 6y ago
"nose slingers"
- smcl 6y ago
  That’s a nice phrase. In my group we called it “dick-nosing” - iirc it came about due to: 1) you wouldn’t (shouldn’t?) go around with your dick hanging out of your trousers, so why would you do the same with your nose and your mask 2) you’re a dick if you do this
  - MaulingMonkey 6y ago
    A decent amount of it is unintentional I suspect. Subconcious fiddling, poor feeling / awareness of slipping masks... a gentle reminder that "your mask has slipped a bit" can do wonders.
    - yissp 6y ago

anigbrowl 6y ago

> Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to why you're not wearing a mask. Is it policy for the officers to pull one out and say 'you do now'?

LatteLazy 6y ago
Not that I saw. Supermarkets do that sometimes at the door and good for them. But at this point, I'm tired of people "forgetting". I think it's time for actual enforcement.

paulnechifor 6y ago

> "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to why you're not wearing a mask. I haven't worn a mask twice. Once because I forgot it and once because I just forgot to put it on. If "I don't have one" isn't an acceptable excuse what am I supposed to do: produce one out of thin air? It's not like they give out free ones if you forget. There are so many signs now that they're basically invisible. If I'm fined for not wearing it I'll stop wearing it entirely.

standardUser 6y ago
"It's not like they give out free ones if you forget." Why the hell not? Seems like the very first thing they should be doing.
AndrewDavis 6y ago
Offer you one and then fine you. Seriously, don't forget and if you're forgetful then prepare early I have one in my car, a spare in my backpack, keep one in my jacket pocket, and a cheap disposable in my wallet folded up. That way if I forget, I'll have one. My city in Australia had a grace period for everyone to get a mask. After that a lot of fines were handed out. Without fines I doubt we'd have seen compliance anywhere near as high because there are a lot of people who don't want to wear them but do because they fear the fine.
- xyzzy123 6y ago
  There's also a social tipping point sort of thing that happens, and fines help with that. When hardly anyone is wearing a mask you feel a bit weird or silly. When half the people are wearing masks you look at the people who are and aren't and can't help but wonder which side is your in-group. When fines are enforced, everyone has an "excuse" to wear a mask. Darn fines. Then, when everyone is wearing a mask you feel naked if you don't have one. Only the seriously anti-social will defect.
happymellon 6y ago
> If "I don't have one" isn't an acceptable excuse what am I supposed to do How is it that after nearly 10 months of this would you not have a mask? Do you also think that "sorry officer, I didn't realise that getting completely sloshed and then driving was illegal, what am I supposed to to? Suddenly sober up?" > If I'm fined for not wearing it I'll stop wearing it entirely. This makes absolutely no sense. So you want to be fined daily because you got fined once for not wearing a mask during a pandemic? And people don't understand why it's spreading so much. That's like saying > I was fined for dangerous driving, and because of this I'm now only going to drive on the wrong side of the road.

jonplackett 6y ago

Also in London and 100% agree. I’ve barely been to a shop in 8 months because of this. For some reason we can manage to prevent drunk agro people entering a club with the wrong shoes, but 8 months into a pandemic we can’t make people wear a bloody mask? It’s insane. The government are partly to blame for making rules so haphazardly that even someone like me who reads EVERYTHING and wants to do the right thing 100% of the time finds them hard to be sure of. But ultimately people have to start taking the blame for not even doing the basics or following the letter of the law but not the spirit - nose slingers are the prime example of this. I’ve just decided to go my own much more stringent path and ignore dumb government advice.

pjc50 6y ago
I've heard how to wear an aircraft oxygen mask a hundred times in my life but never a PSA on how to wear a COVID mask. One I hope never to do and the other I do every week at least.
- lumberingjack 6y ago
  This I have MOPP training and just flew though two airports I saw 0 people probably useing a mask.
gotaran 6y ago
> For some reason we can manage to prevent drunk agro people entering a club with the wrong shoes At least in the US, dress codes in nightclubs exist as a deterrent to individuals with gang affiliations. It's pretty racist. Guess which race anti-maskers are predominantly.
spoopyskelly 6y ago
> Also in London and 100% agree. I’ve barely been to a shop in 8 months because of this. You should go to a shrink.

DanBC 6y ago

For people not familiar with London train stations: they're huge and can be very busy. Here's video from one (St Pancras, about 35m people per normal year) today: https://twitter.com/scattermoon/status/1340393706009079812?s=20 https://twitter.com/scattermoon/status/1340393706009079812?s... Most people appear to be wearing masks, but still it's not ideal.

Veen 6y ago

> One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning That is an enormous over-exaggeration. It's a virus, not a magic spell. Plus, employees are not required to wear masks, but customers are. > Time and again we see them decline scientific advice Which scientific advice have they declined? So far as I can see, Boris is entirely under the influence of SAGE and does nothing without "scientific advice".

LatteLazy 6y ago
>employees are not required to wear masks That's exactly my point. He ignored calls for a September "circuit breaker", then had to panic in October. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/world/boris-johnson-ignored-scientists-advice-for-a-brief-national-lockdown.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/world/boris-johnson-ignor... This article lists a host of other times scientists have been ignored then proven right: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-government-boris-johnson-science-advisors https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-government-boris-johnson-...

beaker52 6y ago

Also a Londoner. Whilst I've observed greater mask compliance, shops, cafes, bars and restaurants have been packed. I've been to bars freely serving alcohol with no need to buy food, just like the old days. Definitely seeing rule breaking. And I've had a friend who wanted to beat the travel restrictions by leaving London before midnight. That's rule beating. I see it everywhere. A PSA because it's important: I can promise future you would rather remember "dang, do you remember that shit Christmas we had to stay home?" over "dang, do you remember that shit Christmas that someone accidentally gave Mum covid and she died because we REALLY wanted Christmas with the family in the middle of a pandemic". It really isn't worth it. Not right now. Just be patient and wait.

morlockabove 6y ago
Go and gather in groups where all are below 50 with no underlying conditions, instead.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Some of you will still get Long Covid, which may leave you with permanent breathing issues and other health problems. The biggest lie is that if you're under 30 you're immune. You're not - not even slightly. You're far less likely to die than someone who is 85 and obese with diabetes and high blood pressure. But no one knows what the long term health implications are for younger people who make a partial recovery. And there's been a non-negligible number of those.
  - hknapp 6y ago
    This is interesting. What are the stats (percentages) on those who get "Long Covid" by age group?
    - renaudg 6y ago
      I don't have the age breakdown but serious/long Covid is about 15% of cases, which is potentially millions of people in most countries if we let the epidemic rip through. Symptoms include mental fog, loss of concentration, extreme fatigue, loss of smell.. This is why the idea of chasing herd immunity without a vaccine has always been misguided

twic 6y ago

See table 2 in the most recent weekly national COVID-19 surveillance report [1], which breaks down where outbreaks have happened. In London, there were 220 outbreaks last week: Educational 108 Hospital 42 Care home 38 Workplace 20 Other 10 Prisons 1 Food outlet/restaurant 1 This is outbreaks, not infections - i don't think we have statistics on that, so this is the best indication we have of where the virus is spreading. Schools, hospitals, care homes, and workplaces account for the huge majority of spread. There's no empirical reason to think either tube trains or supermarkets are the problem. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-co...

317070 6y ago
One needs to be careful with such statistics though. The Netherlands had similar numbers but luckily also reported they could only trace 20% of the outbreaks. And that puts things in a very different perspective. Of the traced outbreaks, most were in schools. But that is not really a surprise, as outbreaks in schools are really easy to trace. If you have a group of 25 students which basically spend 40 hours a week together and they all get sick, super obvious. But how do you trace clients of a restaurant back to a restaurant? You mostly don't. My reading of these lists is as a mix between places that are easy to trace, and places where really a lot of infections are happening. It is hard to tell which are which and which are both. Not to mention where the other missing 80% of cases came from.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Edit, ignore the next paragraph, I was looking at this week vs last wekk... Weirdly I see slightly different numbers... Table 2 on page number 26 of the first pdf? Sorry if I'm looking in the wrong place... Either way, I think this relies on contact tracing data, but contact tracing doesn't happen on trains or in supermarkets (super markets are exempt why exactly? No one knows). That's why their zeros...
- marcosdumay 6y ago

andyjohnson0 6y ago

> Supermarkets continue to be rammed, but staff aren't required to wear masks. The wearing of masks by retail employees has been mandatory in England since 24th September [1]. Up here in Manchester I don't recall seeing any supermarket workers not wearing them. I can easily believe that conditions in London are different though. [1] https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/09/face-masks-made-compulsory-for-retail-workers-from-this-week/ https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/09/face-masks-made...

LatteLazy 6y ago
I'll take some pics next time. As I say, we have a huge enforcement gap here.
- rjsw 6y ago
  I'm also in Manchester, haven't seen anyone without a mask in a shop for a long time.

DenisM 6y ago

> One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning Is that really so? As I recall the viral load has to cross a minimal threshold before infection develops, and even then the lower the load the milder the illness. A store employee with his mouth shut whom you pass by in about 3 seconds is a far cry from someone who is singing at you at 10 ft distance for an hour, or eating and chatting for that same hour.

OJFord 6y ago

I live in London, and I couldn't tell you what it's like on the tube or in shops; interesting to hear. But, probably you're also a software engineer working from home, so if it bothers you, how are you able to tell me? I assume the large majority of tube users are the non compliant, simply because so few of the compliant have any reason to actually need to use the tube, so your 50% doesn't surprise me at all, certainly not that it's low.

abraxas 6y ago

Elections have consequences.

JimTheMan 6y ago

I had friends living in London come back home to Australia. (2 weeks in mandatory hotel quarantine on entry) Apparently the enforcement and compliance with the rules is night and day different here. They described London as a place with rules that everyone just ignores.

lordnacho 6y ago

I'm in the home counties around London, and I can see something similar. I actually ran into a pair of covid guards from the council, the only time I've seen them, and I kid you not they had their noses over their masks. The rules stopped being followed some time ago, and I'll tell you why. We can't believe in the government anymore, and it's because there's been too many cases of one rule for the people, one for the rulers. Multiple government level staff have been caught breaking the rules. Cummings was maybe the most egregious case, a known positive driving hundreds of miles to his parents, who is then protected by the PM from sacking. On top of that, when he actually did get sacked it was due to a petty internal power struggle months later, with no mention of the breach. Then there was the scientist with the affair, the MP who took the train back to Scotland, and so on. Plus stories of cronyism in who was given contracts to service the covid needs. I can see why people think the rules are a theatre. They obviously don't think the rules matter, or that it matters whether we get the required projects done by competent people. We elected a talker to waffle his way through the Brexit negotiations. That would have worked, because those treaties are impenetrable to normal people; He can do a bit of clever rhetoric to talk up this or that point, and nobody is any wiser because they won't know what it's like to be a cheese import business with no voice in the media. Now the game is up, because you can't talk your way out of a global pandemic, it's too far from normal politics to have practiced stepping around.

da39a3ee 6y ago

Why are religious gatherings exempt? That seems utterly irrational. Surely now of all times is a time for the government to say to religious people “sorry, but we can’t pretend to respect your fantasies right now”.

LatteLazy 6y ago

[Replying to my own comment] Just been to the Tesco at Roneo Corner in Havering (1 borough further out than Barking and Dageham). 38 customers without a mask inside the store (excludes kids even teens, excludes anyone with a pointless visor, excludes anyone with a green and yellow lanyard which means they're exempt). 8 members of staff without a mask (again, excluding as above). Highlights include: * a woman in Islamic dress with a head scarf and eye veil, she had covered every inch of her skin EXCEPT for her mouth and nose. * a staff member with a managers badge and no mask * a parent who took off his mask and gave it to his baby to play with once he was inside * an aisle with about 40 people crammed in looking at the discount section with a staff member with no mask holding a "2m social distance" sign and getting in people's way, but not stopping them or asking anyone to move on!?

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
That's such a contrast to my area (rural Oxfordshire), I haven't seen a maskless customer in a supermarket since the rule came in.

747cwd 6y ago

I agree with every word 100%. Shops, supermarkets, staff, even an NHS clinic allowed someone to talk to reception without a mask..I have asked managers if they are comfortable with the staggering non compliance. “I’ll lose my job” has been their reply. Not surprising a “new strain” has developed.