Letter: We all have a death wish if we stop taking Covid precautions
SIR – I have spent the past several months not going out much and, when I do, staying local.
Imagine to my horror, when for a short break my wife and I travelled to the Isle of Wight and found that virtually no one was wearing a mask indoors, social distancing was non-existent and hand sanitisers were rarely used. Even the hotel manager where we were staying made a rapid retreat from Portsmouth last Saturday as the Xmas market was 'rammed' full of people not even remotely obeying the common sense rules of 'hands, face, space and ventilation'.
On the way over on the ferry from Lymington, the captain made it quite clear that everyone MUST wear their masks on board (or walk the plank?) and they did cover up. On the way back, there was no such announcement, so virtually no one wore a mask. So much for collective common sense.
I have come to the conclusion that we all have a death wish and that with the onset of winter now on our doorstep, things are looking pretty bleak. As Boris says, "the storm clouds are looming" and we will only have ourselves to blame; but no doubt we will get the usual crop of people bleating that there was no guidance and they didn't know what to do.
As a wake up call, it was announced in the press a few days ago that Israel is working on methods that will hopefully work when future variants of the Covid strain overcome the efficacy of the current crop of vaccines. The longer this current pandemic carries on, the greater chance there is of this happening, but like climate change, do we really care?
I think that it is timely to remind people that the wearing of the non-specialised masks does not protect you from Covid. What masks do is when speaking, coughing or sneezing, it acts to reduce the projected distance that the air can travel when it comes out of your mouth/nose, thereby hopefully limiting the number of people that will breathe in the air that you have breathed out. It is simple dynamics.
J Walsh,
Address supplied
