Wearing masks will reduce the R-rate

WHEN I was a boy, Britain declared war on Germany, which was a colossal economic and manufacturing challenge for any nation to undertake, since Germany, for reasons of its own, had pursued a total commitment of the people, to build a hugely successful war machine.

Every activity in Britain had to be submitted to this one purpose, that we must win this war.

As we children were put on the train to be evacuated to a safer refuge, each of us carried our individual gas mask with us, just in case German bombers flew overhead, to drop poison gas on the civilian population.

Can you imagine the magnitude of that Government’s response, in the circumstances, to a threat which might never happen?

Would you compare that to present days, when a pandemic threatens 7 billion people, with a viral infection of human lungs.

All infections of the lungs, such as influenza, are known to be passed on by exactly the same mechanism, when I am infected, and I cough into your face.

Globules drift in the air, from my air passages, containing viruses from the only place in the universe where they are produced, drifting airily in any confined space, with little concern for gravity, contained in the air which you must inhale, sooner or later.

Of course, you would tell me that I should fasten a scarf over the lower half of my face, if I know that that would at least capture some tiny part of the damp globules which are a threat to the health and life of those I love best.

Even better would be the widespread production of masks for everyone, just to reduce, by just a small but significant degree, the transmission, from out of one person, into another.

You see, if we can just cut down by just one, the number of people whom I infect, that reduces R, the exponential spread which proceeds from others.

CN Westerman Brynna South Wales