Tuesday, 14 September 2021
Mask-wearing enforcement on public transport is non-existent
America has had a problem with coronavirus masking policy from the very beginning because many Americans feel it's a matter of choice not health. In the UK masking has not been nearly so controversial. During the lockdowns, the majority of people abided by the law and wore a face-covering in shops and pubic places and definitely on trains, buses and the Underground (Metro). But now that seems to have all changed. We are not in lockdown but all forms of public transport still require passengers to wear masks. Yet from my experience I would say only about 50-60 per cent of people bother to wear a face covering. Men and women of all ages just sit there on the Underground without a mask and stare you down as if to say, "don't even think about asking me". The point is, why is London Transport, for example, which has messages everywhere about the need to wear masks, doing absolutely nothing about enforcing the policy? No one is being stopped entering an Underground station if they don't have a mask on and there are no guards on the trains telling people to put masks on. So what's the point of having a mask policy? And why are so many people blatantly ignoring what surely has to be a common sense way of avoiding spreading the virus on packed trains and buses? I guess it's because there is this growing feeling that the pandemic is over and therefore restrictions of any kind are no longer necessary. If only this were true. Take a look around the world, the pandemic is still raging and here in the UK there are tens of thousands of new infections every day and more than 100 people a day dying of the virus. Covid-19 has become like smoking. People who smoke cigarettes know that it is bad, if not fatal, for their health, yet they still carry on. Likewise, everyone knows that Covid-19 kills, yet wearing a mask is still regarded as an intrusion and even though we all know it will protect others sharing the same bus,train or Underground compartment many people don't care. At least that is the only conclusion I can come to.
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