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Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

cnn.com

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Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#51

Post by barnabee »

culopatin wrote: post #13
hsshjshshs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

It would be more like telling everyone to drive only at lunch and tea time because some people drink and drive. Look, I don’t get offended by people who wear masks or anything like that. But I got covid from a plane while wearing a mask, and I haven’t seen a peer reviewed paper that says the blue ones we use everywhere are worth anything. That in addition to the behaviors of 80% of the mask wearers on a plane… might…

You no longer need a test to get on a plane to the UK, from most countries

Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#52

Post by kryogen1c »

wasmitnetzen wrote: post #38
kryogen1c wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is entirely the wrong take. Its like saying everyone was panicking for no reason in the Cold War because Earth wasn't destroyed in nuclear hellfire. Its feasible that vocal protests helped push back against further tyranny. i dont want to go down the who was right and who was wrong rabbit hole of covid policies. just dont use hindsight to try and retroactively prove your point.

Doesn't that mean you can warn of anything, and if it doesn't happen, you can say "See, it didn't happen because I yelled about it on the internet"?

> Doesn't that mean

No.

> "See, it didn't happen because I yelled about it on the internet"

this is a gross misrepresentation of the anticovid policy sentiment. it wasnt misanthropes on 4chan and twitter warriors with no skin in the game - there were, and still are, millions of people down through grass roots and local politics up to sitting major political party members.

the chess pieces we're playing with are very serious on both sides and the original comment i replied to - "i bet those conspiracy theorists feel stupid now" - is disingenious and a badly formed argument.

Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#53

Post by jacamera »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #9

I wonder what happens to all the conspiracy theorists who a couple of years ago said "this [the enforcement of mask wearing] is just the beginning", and that this is "exactly what Orwell predicted"? Do they admit they were wrong? Or do they conveniently forget they ever said anything like that and move onto the next conspiracy (which currently is likely to resemble toeing the Kremlin line)?

Speaking only for myself, the fear of creeping authoritarianism is not about some grand conspiracy by "the elites" but rather about our collective tolerance of such a "new normal." I just responded to another commenter here who was lamenting the fact that the mask mandates are not permanent. That person's vote counts just as much as mine. I don't think it's ever unreasonable to think that any policy that restricts one's freedom has the potential to either a) become permanent or b) lead to additional restrictions.

Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#54

Post by Overtonwindow »

I am neither a medical professional, nor a scientist, but I absolutely fail to see how wearing a mask on a three hour flight, sitting side by side, is going to protect anyone.

Please, is there real science to back up wearing a mask but still being 18 inches away from each other, for hours on end, or is this just the flight attendants union?

I beg your pardon, but I Really hate masks on planes and I think it’s total BS.

Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#55

Post by Overtonwindow »

jl6 wrote: post #30

Covid appears to be “done” in the UK. Not that the virus is gone, just that there now seems to be widespread acceptance of its health impact, and a strong desire to move on without any restrictions on normal life.

Perhaps media and politicians have decided they’ve gotten enough power and politics out of this crisis, and now it’s OK to move onto the next one.

Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#56

Post by dTal »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #54

I am neither a medical professional, nor a scientist, but I absolutely fail to see how wearing a mask on a three hour flight, sitting side by side, is going to protect anyone. Please, is there real science to back up wearing a mask but still being 18 inches away from each other, for hours on end, or is this just the flight attendants union? I beg your pardon, but I Really hate masks on planes and I think it’s total B…

In a small unventilated closed room you'd be right - the aerosol from mask leakage would saturate the room and the masks would be useless. The kind of masks that most people wear are mainly useful for preventing direct droplet transmission when two people's faces are in close proximity - especially when there's talking involved.

However an airliner is extremely well ventilated - the entire cabin air is refreshed every 3 minutes, through a combination of HEPA filters and fresh outside air. In addition, the airflow in the cabin is vertical - new air is introduced at the top through the nozzles you're used to, and the intakes are by your feet. This means the risk from ambient aerosol transmission is much reduced and direct droplet infection becomes the primary risk vector. I would absolutely expect to see a reduction in transmission if everyone kept wearing masks.

Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#57

Post by hihihihi1234 »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #17
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #9

I wonder what happens to all the conspiracy theorists who a couple of years ago said "this [the enforcement of mask wearing] is just the beginning", and that this is "exactly what Orwell predicted"? Do they admit they were wrong? Or do they conveniently forget they ever said anything like that and move onto the next conspiracy (which currently is likely to resemble toeing the Kremlin line)?

There were quite a few protests in the UK last year against the lockdowns, despite the fact there was no lockdown at the time or planned (nor did it happen) in the future. Quite a few cults seem to go past their doomsday date and simply choose another into the future. They just carry on as if the lack of the event never happened.

Have people already forgotten how much pressure the government was under in December to lock us down again? SAGE were predicting 6000 deaths a day, as if their modelling hadn't already been discredited ten times over, and all the usual suspects in the media and the Labour Party were screaming for more restrictions. If it hadn't been for partygate, the backbench Tory rebellion, and massive public resistance in the form of protests and more, Boris would have caved to SAGE and we'd have had another two months of our lives stolen, another Christmas ruined, another term of school missed, another million livelihoods destroyed and another ten billion added to the public debt - and it would have all been completely unnecessary, because Omicron was a fat load of nothing and SAGE's modelling turned out to be wrong yet again. But people would have pointed to the low death rate and said "I told you lockdown was necessary! If we hadn't locked down we would be seeing 6000 deaths a day!"

Also, these protests werent just against lockdown. There were enormous protests against vaccine passports, and they were successful - the govt had vaxpasses ready to go in the summer and pushed them back repeatedly before cancelling them in the face of public pressure and tireless campaigning from civil liberties groups like Big Brother Watch. If it hadn't been for the protests then you wouldnt have been able to go to Sainsbury's in the last six months without scanning your QR code.

Finally, there were also protests against vaccine mandates, and in particular the vaccine mandate for NHS staff. Personally I found those protests silly - I would have thought that NHS workers of all people would understand the importance of getting vaccinated, but the facts are that the government initially announced that NHS workers would be fired if they didn't get the jab then walked this back when it became clear that enforcing this rule would mean firing tens of thousands of intransigent NHS staff and they couldn't afford the shortages. There was a gigantic protest in London in January against the NHS vax mandate (not that you'd have heard about it on the news) - a protest which unequivocally achieved its goal.

If you don't think people were protesting against anything real or that the protests didn't achieve anything then you haven't been paying attention.

Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#58

Post by ziml77 »

WA wrote: post #45
kryogen1c wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is entirely the wrong take. Its like saying everyone was panicking for no reason in the Cold War because Earth wasn't destroyed in nuclear hellfire. Its feasible that vocal protests helped push back against further tyranny. i dont want to go down the who was right and who was wrong rabbit hole of covid policies. just dont use hindsight to try and retroactively prove your point.

The conspiracy theorists always claimed that there is some kind of master plan to enslave the human race by the elite and that masks and whatnot are just the beginning. How does a minority protest stop the evil masterplan? This makes no sense at all. Either there is a master plan and you have to have 90% of the people on the street opposing this, or there was no master plan from the get go. The conspiracy theory crum…

Conspiracy theorists must either ignore the internal inconsistency or have a highly convoluted way of rationalizing it. Unfortunately I don't think it's possible to reason with many of these people.

Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#59

Post by brigandish »

WA wrote: post #45
kryogen1c wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is entirely the wrong take. Its like saying everyone was panicking for no reason in the Cold War because Earth wasn't destroyed in nuclear hellfire. Its feasible that vocal protests helped push back against further tyranny. i dont want to go down the who was right and who was wrong rabbit hole of covid policies. just dont use hindsight to try and retroactively prove your point.

The conspiracy theorists always claimed that there is some kind of master plan to enslave the human race by the elite and that masks and whatnot are just the beginning. How does a minority protest stop the evil masterplan? This makes no sense at all. Either there is a master plan and you have to have 90% of the people on the street opposing this, or there was no master plan from the get go. The conspiracy theory crum…

> How does a minority protest stop the evil masterplan? This makes no sense at all. Either there is a master plan and you have to have 90% of the people on the street opposing this, or there was no master plan from the get go.

Why can there not be a master plan that is difficult to implement where there is resistance? Why can the plan not have several stages and levels of implementation? Why can it not be that at different levels of resistance the plan may have to be shelved completely, in part, or be paused to try again in future?

To reduce a plan to take over the world so reductively as to make it a dilemma can only be the product of black and white thinking. I know it's best to be sceptical of outrageous claims but I would assume that anyone who reads HN knows that a project with any level of complexity couldn't be characterised in such a way, let alone one to take over the world!

Re: Masks on planes requirement dropped by some UK airlines

#60

Post by brigandish »

tomgp wrote: post #46
dustinmoris wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect my family and friends to help me out. I don't expect the entire world around me to dance to my tune because of a fear I hold. When I was 10 years old nobody stopped smoking around me in indoor places, so now the same people who smoked all their life and ate themselves obese are afraid of my fresh super healthy fit breath? Sorry, not my problem and I honestly couldn't care less. On my list of priorities that…

Wow! We're talking about wearing a face mask for a short amount of time in very specific situations here, a tiny inconvenience which has proven benefits for a broad swathe of the population (not just the old). No one's asking you to lock yourself at home and not see friends and family. Wearing a mask on a plane is going to reduce the chances of those more stringent measures being put back on the table. Also, not ever…

> proven benefits

Why did the DANMASK RCT fail so spectacularly?

> Also, not everyone is selfish, you're projecting the way you see the world onto other people.

Uncalled for. You might consider that to impose your views on others could easily be considered far more selfish than someone unwilling to participate in an activity, even one with such unimpeachable, proven benefits.

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