Scrutable

Current UK government advice regarding mask wearing is:

"We expect and recommend that members of the public continue to wear face coverings in crowded and enclosed spaces where you come into contact with people you don’t normally meet. For example, on public transport."

The crowded and enclosed spaces part is straight forward. But I'm struggling to understand the "people you don't normally meet" part. Is the above based on scientific advice, and if so, what is the reasoning? If I go into a coffee shop or cafeteria at work, with people I meet on a regular basis, am I really at lower risk of catching covid than if I go into a coffee shop/cafeteria elsewhere, with people I don't usually interact with?

Howard

If you spend all day at home with someone then it's a waste of time to wear a mask when you're out with them.

hakwright wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 24, 2021 8:32 pm

Current UK government advice regarding mask wearing is:

"We expect and recommend that members of the public continue to wear face coverings in crowded and enclosed spaces where you come into contact with people you don’t normally meet. "
I'm struggling to understand the "people you don't normally meet" part. Is the above based on scientific advice, and if so, what is the reasoning?

I don't know what advice was given, but I expect that it is based on network theory. Typical social networks are very cliquey, so a person will easily spread infection to their clique, but further transmission relies on a few links. Furthermore, social networks tend to have many people linked in small cliques, with a few people linked to very many others. Since those few cannot possibly interact with all the others all the time, but they are very important to keeping the network connected and its diameter small, if they break their transmission link it should have a very disproportionate effect.

However, the advice is severely undermined by the fact that mandating mask wearing has very little effect.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 24, 2021 8:35 pm

If you spend all day at home with someone then it's a waste of time to wear a mask when you're out with them.

I’d agree on people in your household, but that’s not what they mean. This ‘people you don’t normally meet’ is the reasoning for them being against masks in schools and why Tory MPs don’t wear them in the HoC.

I doubt there’s any scientific basis to it. It’s basically to do with a significant section of the Tory party being anti-mask and Boris not wanting to piss them off. They get to say they recommend masks while also telling people the only place they need a mask is with strangers. With the added bonus you get to tell labour MPs they are either not working hard enough, virtue signalling or not convivial and friendly enough if they are wearing masks.

I disagree about mask mandates though. Since the ‘use your common sense’ approach to wearing masks cam in in July the rate of mask wearing on my bus comute has fallen from nearly everyone in a mask to maybe 3-4 people on a full double decker. The mask mandate was working, it’s the removal of the mandate that has stopped people wearing masks.

You are more likely to catch covid from someone you know. You should mask around everybody.

OffTheRock wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 25, 2021 7:19 am

I disagree about mask mandates though. Since the ‘use your common sense’ approach to wearing masks cam in in July the rate of mask wearing on my bus comute has fallen from nearly everyone in a mask to maybe 3-4 people on a full double decker. The mask mandate was working, it’s the removal of the mandate that has stopped people wearing masks.

When I say that mask mandates don't work, I'm referring to protecting against catching and spreading Covid. Obviously they work in the sense that they cause people to wear some sort of mask.

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:11 am

hakwright wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 24, 2021 8:32 pm

Current UK government advice regarding mask wearing is:

"We expect and recommend that members of the public continue to wear face coverings in crowded and enclosed spaces where you come into contact with people you don’t normally meet. "
I'm struggling to understand the "people you don't normally meet" part. Is the above based on scientific advice, and if so, what is the reasoning?

I don't know what advice was given, but I expect that it is based on network theory. Typical social networks are very cliquey, so a person will easily spread infection to their clique, but further transmission relies on a few links. Furthermore, social networks tend to have many people linked in small cliques, with a few people linked to very many others. Since those few cannot possibly interact with all the others all the time, but they are very important to keeping the network connected and its diameter small, if they break their transmission link it should have a very disproportionate effect.

I also wondered about connectivity between different groups, and people who have an unusually high number of connections across groups that are otherwise not well connected. But I'm not sure about the assumption that those highly connected people do not interact with their varied connections on a regular basis.

Say there's a group of ladies that get together every Wednesday lunchtime and do knitting together. There's another group that meets on Saturdays to discuss and show off their Harley Davidsons. There are very few people - maybe only one - that is common to both groups. So the one person is an important connection between groups that are otherwise unconnected. But why assume that this person doesn't regularly interact with both groups?

The dimension of how connected you are to many others, and the dimension of how often you meet people are surely more or less independent? (OK if you interact with a few hundred people, in several groups, those interactions will on average be a little less frequent than someone who interacts with 10 people from one group. But I can't see that being a significant factor).

It strikes me that the advice about mask wearing would make more sense if it emphasised the need to wear masks in any crowded, or poorly ventilated place, and emphasised the need to wear masks for anyone who interacts with large numbers of people (whether frequently or more rarely). So definitely MPs.

I normally meet my antimask and antivaccine trump activist coworker in the lab, with her not wearing a mask despite a city mandate and a mandate from her employer, the Federal government.

Well, at least until the Federal employee vaccine mandate kicks in, and she's fired.

If I work in Tesco I "normally meet" loads of regular customers who shop there

For me it kinda works. I decided some time ago that I hate people so my contacts of people I know reduce to three family members and half a dozen people I work with where masks aren’t generally worn for fleeting contact. On the train and bus to work I’m sitting near dozens of people I don’t know every day, most of whom don’t wear masks and the individuals change every day. Plus maskless tw.ts looking at their phones walk into me every day while I try to jump to one side. Next time I’ll stay put and f.cking punch them I think.