The arbitrary law compelling us to wear a mask in an empty shop but not in a crowded pub

sir – Let me get this right. The Prime Minister is saying that I must wear a mask in a shop, even if I’m the only one in there and I’m in and out in a matter of minutes, but I can spend all night in a pub with scores of other people and I don’t need a mask.

Mike Tugby

Warminster, Wiltshire

sir – What is the logic behind allowing us free access to cinemas with no face masks where, if the auditorium is full, one can observe no sort of distancing, yet in a supermarket, where observing social distancing doesn’t present much of a problem, we have to mask up? Matthew Biddlecombe

Sampford Courtenay, Devon

sir – I’m done. No more masks, distancing, avoiding social gatherings, bumping elbows. My plans for a family Christmas will continue. I’m triplejabbed and I’m in my seventies. I don’t have any more time to waste.

Eve Wilson

Hill Head, Hampshire sir – It is, simply and absolutely, selfish not to wear a mask. Otherwise it would be like saying during the Blitz: “I don’t want to turn off my lights or shut my curtains because I’m happy to take the personal risk.” The bombs this attracted would have been 100 times more likely to kill someone other than yourself.

This is also why, counter-intuitively, in a free and liberal society it is sometimes necessary to legislate and enforce rather than appeal to people’s better selves. We get too used to “Why should I?” and “Me, me, me.” The government knew this in 1940.

Victor Launert

Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

sir – Three people are found with the omicron variant on Saturday and masks become mandatory three days later. Parliament will vote on the law in the next 28 days. That is just lip service to democratic governance. We are no longer a parliamentary democracy. Jim White

Stroud, Gloucestershire sir – There might have been greater take-up of the Covid vaccine if the Government had been positive and removed all restrictions from those fully vaccinated with the three doses.

The unvaccinated look at those who made the effort, see no new freedoms, and wonder why they should bother. All stick and no carrot never works. Eric Gibbons

Dunfermline, Fife

sir – I have Covid. I got the news at 7am on Sunday after taking a PCR test at a drive-through centre on Saturday. It was my third test last week.

I first PCR tested last Tuesday with my daughter when she felt unwell. She was positive, I was negative. I tested first thing on Thursday. Again I was negative, as was my elder daughter, but my husband was positive.

For the third time, I tested on Saturday, this time with a cough. A lateral flow at home showed negative, but my feeling was that I was positive, so five days after my younger child tested positive, I was back at the drive-through centre. Had I relied on my first test, I would have been out and about in the community.

So testing for travellers should be on Day 5, with isolation before it.

Ros Walker

Dunblane, Perthshire

sir – My wife was recently relieved of her purse, credit cards and cash in a two-man sting at a supermarket checkout. But at least the perpetrators had taken the trouble to be fully masked for the occasion.

Jeremy Burton

Wokingham, Berkshire

sir – The classical Greek alphabet has two types of O: the large O-mega, and the small O-micron. The latter is pronounced O-my-cron, stressed on the middle syllable (Letters, November 29). The classics staff at Eton must be squirming in their shoes to hear that even the Prime Minister has joined the

Ommi-cron brigade.

Gerald Wilson

Lytham, Lancashire