The UK government has announced that masks are again to be mandatory in shops and public transport.
MSM journalists have 'reported' this, fretting that 'the latest set of measures do not go far enough', rather than ask the serious questions we should expect in a democracy:
'Cases of the new variant appearing in the UK were inevitable.
What was not inevitable was the government’s response, moving swiftly to tighten rules for those arriving in the country and for the wearing of face coverings in shops and on public transport in England.
In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland face coverings are already mandatory on public transport and in some indoor settings. So why not the full Plan B for England with requirements to work from home and the use of vaccine passports in some settings?
The prime minister’s answer was that more work was needed to determine how rapidly the variant spreads and how effective the vaccines might be – hence the focus on trying to stop cases coming into the UK but holding off on a wider range of domestic restrictions.
In effect the government is trying to buy time with a review in three weeks, relying on the booster programme to increase immunity while data on Omicron is analysed.
It will hope that the worst fears about the spread of the variants are not realised. There is always the risk, though, that the latest set of measures don’t go far enough.' Hugh Pym: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59443504
'This comes as' we publish an Open Letter to the Guardian questioning the scientific validity of a paper that claims that weraing masks can 'cut Covid incidence by 53%': https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/memo-to-the-guardian-have-you-muzzled-the-facts-on-face-masks/
Civil libertarians argue that telling people they must wear masks is a massive infringement of civil liberty, and requires testable evidence to support it even prima facie.
It is proposed that the UK government must publish clear evidence that wearing masks is effective