My real criticism of mass mask wearing
MARK Iles (“Is everyone else just wrong then, Neil?”, Opinion, December 23) thinks that I am not a “great fan of masks”.
My criticism is of making them mandatory in situations where the benefit is hard to justify. Clearly, in circumstances where two people are in close proximity for a reasonable length of time – e.g. in hairdressing, or during a vaccination – there is an opportunity for transmission. But in shops and on public transport the benefit is far more doubtful, as the possibility of transmission is far less due to the dilution of any virus by significant air movement.
The wearing of masks indoors has always been of questionable benefit. That is why the recommendation to wear them was not given at the start of the pandemic. That doubt arose because it was clearly difficult to set up trials with one group wearing masks, and the other not.
However, as I explained in my last letter, the change of UK maskwearing rules in July provided a large-scale evaluation. In England wearing of masks in shops and on public transport was down to the individual, whereas in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland masks remained mandatory. The subsequent ONS data showed no clear evidence of higher infection levels in England.
Mark Iles asks why some MPS voted against the new regulations in December. MPS are there to scrutinise and question legislation. There is a growing understanding that non-pharmaceutical inventions are not without cost, and therefore should only be invoked when they can be justified.
Finally, Mark Iles appears to suggest that living with Covid means that we should continue to wear masks indefinitely, as “nobody wishes to become another grim statistic”. Sorry Mark, I am not that risk averse. Thanks to vaccination, many millions of people have contracted the virus and have not ended up in hospital, or worse. Whilst I appreciate the risk for the clinically vulnerable, for many people the evidence of their friends contracting the virus (sometimes more than once) and not experiencing serious illness, is giving them the confidence to live with the virus.
Neil Stafford West Bridgford