Blood donors treated like toxic threats

HOW I wish that the people who run the English Blood Transfusion Service were even one tenth as helpful as the wonderful people who work in it.

A few weeks ago, at the height of the virus panic, I gave blood (as I often do) without any great fuss and with no need to wear a muzzle. Now the English Service demands I must wear such a muzzle at my next, fast-approaching appointment. It can offer no legal or scientific justification for this (there isn’t one). In Wales, donors are asked to remove muzzles, because they hide the signs a donor is about to faint. Since I regard these muzzles as deeply distressing symbols of servile submission to unreasoning power, I face a very unpleasant choice.

Why do these people want to treat voluntary donors as if they are toxic threats?