24-10-2021, 18:17
(This post was last modified: 24-10-2021, 18:19 by St Charles Owl.)
I have just got back to the US having spent 10 days in the UK and I was surprised that most people in the UK are not wearing a mask, especially inside stores and only about 50% of people were wearing one at Heathrow. My sister works in a public school and even there there is no mask mandate!! Obviously there have been hotspots in the US, particularly in Trump backed Red states but my reference is California where I live.
We have a population of about 40m, the bulk of which is densely packed into two main areas - Southern CA and the Bay Area. The Governor had us in lockdown initially but since May of last year we have been doing regional mandates and have had no lockdowns since. LA county is currently under a mask mandate, Orange County where I live is not and this is all based on the number of hospitalizations and availability of hospital beds. Schools have mask mandates, as do buses, trains and planes, but shops, restaurants etc do not.
This policy has seen us record half the amount of cases and deaths that the UK has seen with about 2/3rds of the population. But not all this is down to the government, even without mask mandates the vast majority of people wear masks when in stores or walking through restaurants. I think the UK population also needs to take some responsibility and they need to wear masks where it makes sense. We don't need to be told by the government when or where it is important to wear masks, we have been in this long enough to know!!
The UK policy feels a bit like the US red states with the exception that a number of red states are not even recommending getting the vaccine!! The vaccine is crucial, Boris is right with that but it is so much more effective when combined with mask wearing, social distancing and washing hands and this should be the message (and policy) from the Government, but as I say we as citizens know what we should do and in the UK they are not despite seeing the numbers rising, whereas here in CA even without mandates people are doing it and the numbers continue to fall. The government is full of idiots, of that there is no doubt but the general population might just be the same!!
We have a population of about 40m, the bulk of which is densely packed into two main areas - Southern CA and the Bay Area. The Governor had us in lockdown initially but since May of last year we have been doing regional mandates and have had no lockdowns since. LA county is currently under a mask mandate, Orange County where I live is not and this is all based on the number of hospitalizations and availability of hospital beds. Schools have mask mandates, as do buses, trains and planes, but shops, restaurants etc do not.
This policy has seen us record half the amount of cases and deaths that the UK has seen with about 2/3rds of the population. But not all this is down to the government, even without mask mandates the vast majority of people wear masks when in stores or walking through restaurants. I think the UK population also needs to take some responsibility and they need to wear masks where it makes sense. We don't need to be told by the government when or where it is important to wear masks, we have been in this long enough to know!!
The UK policy feels a bit like the US red states with the exception that a number of red states are not even recommending getting the vaccine!! The vaccine is crucial, Boris is right with that but it is so much more effective when combined with mask wearing, social distancing and washing hands and this should be the message (and policy) from the Government, but as I say we as citizens know what we should do and in the UK they are not despite seeing the numbers rising, whereas here in CA even without mandates people are doing it and the numbers continue to fall. The government is full of idiots, of that there is no doubt but the general population might just be the same!!