Following the announcement a few weeks ago on a Thursday regarding relaxation of wearing of masks, should I as a PMR sufferer still wear a mask given my condition?
Wearing of masks in shops and public places - PMRGCAuk
Wearing of masks in shops and public places
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Littlejan22
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Yes and try to spend less time in shops now other people won't be wearing masks.
Yes 😷. Cases are still high, I believe, with thousands in hospital.I made a rare visit a couple of days ago to my local Sainsbury and Boots chemist and wore a mask in both. Hand sanitiser was available (I carry my own) and I made use of those.
I noticed a fair number of people wearing masks. It's your choice, of course, but remember that you don't stop being vulnerable overnight.
I will be wearing a mask. Relaxing of rules is nothing to do with it now being a very small risk of catching Covid and it certainly doesn’t reflect your personal risk of being very ill or not. Nobody knows that until they catch it. It’s more a question of personal choice rather than a green light that all is well.
PMRproAmbassador
Well I would! By wearing an FFP2 mask (still compulsory here in Italy both inside and outide where people are) I am doing all I can to avoid catching Covid - a recent study has found a single drop of Covid contaminated fluid in a sneeze or cough is enough to pass it on. But it also reduces the chances of catching other air-borne infections like colds or flu.
The actual infection may or may not be serious, especially if you have had at least 3 jabs. But there is no way of knowing whether you may develop long Covid or be more ill than someone else. I may still catch it - but I will do all in my power to reduce the chances until the incidence is so low it is very unlikely I will catch it.
Actually, here at present the mask has a lot of positives - the air temperatures are a bit parky and a mask keeps your nose warm!
My family uses ffp2 masks too. When we were first advised to wear cloth masks, it was all about protecting other people, not ourselves. I discovered the protective effects of ffp2s online and have often wondered why there is no official promotion of them. I know there is in other countries.
They are mandatory for certain areas here - shops of all sorts, public transport and public buildings (the Super Green Pass (3x vaccinated) is also needed for all except food shops and pharmacies). At present we need them outside where there are people. They are made here. companies have repurposed to produce them since they were first mandated for thelockdown last summer I think it was. They are more comfortable - and available in all sorts of colours, even patterned, so that encourages people to wear them too. Most of us carry them when there is no-one else around - but we wear them. I really do feel as safe here as is possible.
It was noticeable too that during the last few weeks with high case figures, 40% were in under 19s - i.e. at school. But my teacher friend says they didn't catch it at school - no teachers have had it. And the last few days the numbers are tumbling.
Absolutely and categorically yes!
The thinking now is that because of the vaccination programme, if you contract covid you'll experience it to a less serious & milder degree, and for most people this will prove true. However, there will always be some people for whom this won't be the case, and despite them maybe already having caught covid & also being vaccinated, they'll still become very poorly.
My colleague at school has just had it for the third time. She's young, fit, healthy and fully vaccinated & boosted up and yet she was really poorly this third time, and off work for over a month!
She's hopefully an exception to the rule, but what this shows is that you'll only actually know how the infection will affect you if or when you contract it yourself. I personally don't want to take the risk to find out!
Covid is still out there, and the more it transmits, the more opportunity it has to mutate again......hopefully not into a more serious variant than we've experienced so far.
We wear the mask, not just to protect ourselves, but to protect others too and as responsible human beings, I personally feel a duty of care to do just that.
Mask wearing is no longer mandatory, but my hope would be that if enough people continue to do the right thing then we'll all be better protected & safer from contracting covid.
A study in Austria has just established that Omicron infection only really protects against Omicron so it is rather likely that there could be another variant that takes hold again. Even the "recovered" status of non-vaccinated is a bit questionable in terms of immunity.
I heard Prof Tim Spector say on a radio interview that the only purpose of a virus is to 'thrive & survive' and the only way it can do that is by mutating. In order for it to mutate it has to continue transmitting to different 'hosts' and each transmission potentially provides it with that opportunity to mutate. It's not necessarily likely, but definitely possible, that a much more serious mutation might occur in the future if our actions (or inactions) allow it to perpetuate.
in reply to Kendrew
I don’t say this flippantly but science fiction films have been showing this process for years so really they are science FACT films 😜
Blackcat1M in reply to
In the early seventies there was a tv programme about a virus that almost wiped the world out.My OH said it just shows you all those years ago it was thought possible to get a deadly virus.
If anybody is old enough to remember this programme I would love to know.
It was on BBC and called Survivors
in reply to Blackcat1M
survivors - I wasn’t allowed to watch it but occasionally saw a trailer, I think they all lived in the tube lines.
This?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survi...
Yes - remember it well. Scared the living daylights out if me! And now we have a real version.
I think I remember the opening credits as someone walking across an airport concourse and accidentally dropping a vial containing the virus - it shattered, hence the start of the pandemic. I was very young and remember the programme as being very dark and a bit hopeless.
I don't remember it - I was at uni/starting work and I don't think we had a TV. If we did, evenings after work and getting home were a bit on the short side!!!!
Well if memory serves me right, you didn't miss much in the way of uplifting entertainment 🤣😭
Doesn't sound uplifting at all, you are right there!
Thank you that’s the one,
Stephen King did a television mini-series called The Stand. In the movie an antigen shifting virus escapes from a secret government lab and wipes out 99 percent of the population. The movie that comes closest to defining this madness is "Contagion". Every time someone promotes hydrochoroquine, or Ivermectin, I think of Forsythia.
Exactly - and scientists have been warning of exactly this scenario for the last lord knows how many years. It wasn't a case of if or maybe, it was when and what. Now we know. And it will happen again. And again.
in reply to PMRpro
Yes I fear it will but also that the need to protect may create an Them and us situation.
DorsetLadyPMRGCAuk volunteer
Well I do indoors…and I’ve been off Pred for 5 years…and not immune compromised.
Our rates in some parts of Dorset, despite being country and coastal (or maybe because- too many visitors) are above national average.
Majority of indoor spaces are still requesting mask wearing.
Why put yourself at risk?
in reply to DorsetLady
Exactly
Simple answer yes.You will find that a lot of shops are still asking customers to continue to wear masks.
I work on the checkouts at Sainsburys and we are still asking people to wear them and I haven’t stopped wearing mine at work and in enclosed spaces
I suffer from PMR but couldn’t wait to leave my mask off!
Your mask not only protects you but it helps protect a lot of vulnerable people. It is a simple precaution to benefit the community you live in . Please think again...you wouldn't really want to be responsible for hospitalising someone .....or taking up a hospital bed yourself. Stay healthy and keep others healthy.
As most people have had their vaccines they’re probably not vulnerable and if I thought I was suffering from a virus I wouldn’t go out. I am tested by the ONS every month as part of a survey and have had negative results for over a year now so don’t consider myself a threat to anyone. I’m sorry if it upsets people but I find it hard to breathe with a mask on.
You are infectious prior to symptoms. You need to test every three days to be sure you are not putting other people at risk. I can no longer go out because people don't wear masks etc. You are imprisoning people like me...and we are not a small number. Disabled people have always been invisible...our numbers are growing because people can't take responsibility for others.
Every 3 days isn't enough with omicron - you can be negative in the morning and positive by the evening.
Wearing an FFP2 (or even better FFP3) mask yourself and keeping your distance is probably enough to be safer than everyone wearing ineffective fabric or surgical masks and not covering their noses! Amazing how many people appear to think they don't breathe through their noses!
Certainly isn’t long enough. It’s very variable. Daughter one wasn’t positive until day two of symptoms and her partner didn’t test positive until day 5 of symptoms. They had both been testing daily up to it. We had exactly the same symptoms two days later and never tested positive even with a PCR.
I'm far from convinced about the testing accuracy - as your family shows.
I had 2 negative tests despite starting to feel unwell...the 3rd was positive..4-5 days later...they aren't reliable
Are they self-administered?
I had 2 negative lateral flow tests despite starting with symptoms then the 3rd was positive (all done at home over 3 consecutive days). I then had the PCR priority test which they sent me and got notification from NHS it was positive. I got a call from NHS advising I could go and have an anti-viral fusion which was done over 2 hours (they observe you for an hour after removing the canula). It was done in a building for this purpose and they take 2 patients a day, so I consider myself extremely fortunate!
I fully accept your right to choose whether you wear a mask or not and I'm sure you act as responsibly as you can, but you're wrong to assume most people are not vulnerable because they've been vaccinated. . Its probably fair to say that many people probably will be adequately protected but there are still hundreds of thousands of others who are either elderly, immuno-supressed or have other health issues, and therefore still very vulnerable despite being vaccinated. I personally will not allow anyone who isn't wearing a mask anywhere near me if I'm out and about because as an ex nurse I know how far our exhaled breath can travel.I also know from experience that you can take a lateral flow test in the morning that's negative and one the same evening that's positive, so we can contract the virus at any time and for many reasons be unwittingly transmitting it... particularly if we're asymptomatic. So it's not as simple as we sometimes may think.
Once a month isn't going to tell you or anyone else if you are infectious! Nor is relying on symptoms - I know a few people who have had positive Covid tests at work and had no symptoms at all. That is why here FFP2 masks for all as well as distancing has been mandatory.
Having had the jab doesn't protect you from catching the virus - and since it doesn't post a sign on your forehad, none of us knows whether we have developed immunity and even triple jabbed people are catching omicron. The cases in ICU here are 95% non-vaccinated people but the other 5% are people with pre-existing conditions that contribute to either poor immunity or to even a mild cold making them more ill than average.
The concept that the vaccine alone is our saviour was always flawed - it is one brick in the path out of lockdown. One stepping stone won't get you far - as part of a set of measures including everyone wearing masks and the other non-pharmaceutical measures it will.
It really should be a case of we are all in this together - and what you or I do contributes to everyone else being safer.
such good information...thank you
The problem is that you may not be aware that you are carrying a virus. You may not have/degvelop the symptoms but the virus might use you as a carrier to infect others that are vulnerable.
I've had 3 vaccines, have isolated for 99% of the last 2 years, and when I've had to leave the house I've masked up. My volunteer shopper from the early days of lockdown is now a friend who collects my shop every fortnight. I've done this not just for myself but for others too. I returned home last night after having a new anti-viral drip/infusion (only given since December) due to getting the virus by goodness knows how? I truly have never felt as poorly in my life and have no doubt if I hadn't had the vaccines I'd be on a ventilator in ICU. I write this from my bed, isolated again and cry intermittently when the thought of how ill those vulnerable people must have felt without the vaccine! I cannot stress the importance of a mask enough...that random 1 droplet can get you anywhere! I understand you're sorry if it upsets anyone but I can honestly say if you experienced this your view would change in a blink!! Do hope you never contract anything near as bad
By the way...I wear glasses AND hearing aids...the mask is a damned pain but the pain of using one is incomparable to the pain of this virus
Precisely, aging feminist!
I hate wearing the blasted things, I really do, but I want to protect myself and my family as much as I can against getting Covid.
Having all the jabs doesn’t make us immune to getting Covid. Sadly.
in reply to Jayveedee
I have asthma and COPD. The masks make me sneeze and affect my breathing but it's for a maximum of 30 minutes.thats how long it takes me to do a weekly shop.better than being in hospital or dead
I do not particularly like wearing mine for over 5 hours at work but feel safer doing so. I also do lateral flow tests every other day as I do not want to pass it on to anyone else unwittingly
I don't think anyone likes wearing a mask but if it's a potential choice between a paper mask and intubation...I know which one I choose!!Thank goodness it's not a WW1 or 2 gas mask....that's what I consider hardship....not a paper mask!
I don't actually DISLIKE wearing my mask - and to be honest. maybe part of the problem is that the surgical masks are a pain more often than not and slip. Here we must wear FFP2 masks to go in shops and there is a range of Italian manufacturers so there are slightly different fits. I have several - the blue one is pants, but the bright pink one is good and the dark green one is superb.
We (My Husband & I 😉) are still wearing masks 😷 & will continue to do so - we went into a card shop yesterday & there was a lady viewing Wedding Cards, coughing, no mask & handling every card bet you can guess what card l wanted too! So no card was bought & we beat a hasty retreat! What dose of Steroids are you on now?
We're you asking Littlejan or me about the steroid dose? Sorry...I wasn't sure.
Hi Angela, I do not like to use the word hate but I do hate that selfish inconsiderate attitude of not only not wearing a mask but spreading germs as that person did. I would have let store staff know they needed to spray the area where those cards were too. It makes my blood boil. Rant over. 🌺
Yes - to be honest l could see the staff looking too otherwise l would have mentioned it….Our Clinton’s is a fairly narrow store & opens into a Mall - l think l’ll order one on line, it might be easier.
We’re pretty adept at side stepping any potential issues & choose our days carefully.
Hope you’re doing OK?
Angela xx
Their online delivery is pretty good. I probably wouldn’t have been able to resist saying they’d lost an in store sale from me that day!Yes I know you will be just as I am too. I still do an online food shop and will continue to. I can pop out if I choose but don’t have to. Loving the occasional fresh air. Sooo looking forward to saying goodbye to the last of workmen this week!!!
Doing ‘okay’ but dreading the MTX appointment on 28th! 🌺 x
Good Luck for 28th 🍀 let me know how you get on.Take Care x
I’ve got an evening out, on 23rd March, been booked since last year and want to be well enough to go. I’m gingerly going to ask if I can delay starting treatment for those three weeks? What do you think. (It was delayed on the 10th January due to losing my Sister and the Dr readily agreed on that occasion).
Yep - tough one - you can only ask & see what he says. Good Luck 🍀
We’ve got a Wedding at the end of the month - l think l have to wear a Mask 😷 on arrival as they are a Kissy 💋 Kissy 💋 Bunch! Plus l have a hat l don’t want knocking!
I also have gloves (velvet of course) so l can whip them off one we’ve said our Hello’s & sanitise…….
You’ve Nailed it - excuse the pun.
Wearing your mask initially hopefully speaks volumes.
We didn’t overdo the hugs at my Sister’s funeral - none were given except to my brothers and sisters when we first arrived.
The first thing I do when I’ve left a shop is sanitize.
Hope you enjoy the wedding. 🌺
Absolutely wear a mask, this virus has not done with us yet. I most certainly will continue to wear a mask and practice social distance. My family are still very protective to myself and my husband ( he has myasthenia gravis and common variable immune disorder ), so we both have to be very careful.Take care and wear a mask 😷
Yes, and avoid places where other people are not wearing them!
I am. Stops the spread of other things too. Majority of people still wearing masks where I live
Definitely Littlejan. Protect yourself ( and others) as much as you can. It’s not over yet.
Unfortunately the relaxing of rules hasn’t eradicated Covid, it’s still lurking out there.
Me and my hubby definitely wear masks at all times. It so irritates me to see people (especially older people for some unknown reason) wearing one UNDER their nose.
This is just our choice of course, but we feel safer for doing it.
I wear a mask and so does my husband. Even if I didn’t have any health problems I would still wear a mask…….why would anyone want to risk catching Covid when you have no idea how badly it could affect you.
I am glad to say that here in Spain masks have been compulsory since March 2020 and only next week will be relaxed to not needing them outside. Almost everyone complies and for that I am grateful having just spent a week in UK and feeling very vulnerable. I have had covid once last July after 2 vaccinations and although not really unwell at the time I am still dealing with the side effects. I still have very little taste back and had a PMR flare after which I am still fighting.
Thank you everyone for your kind comments and replies, my husband was glad to read them with me as he insists it is the safest thing to continue to wear a mask wherever possible. Thank you PMR Pro for the advice on the FFP2 masks, just ordered the best ones off Amazon a pack of 20 so I won't run out anytime soon. I have had it twice now, and never want it again, as you've said no one knows the strength of the next variant, as long as I am on steroids and have PMR (now down to 5ml) and joined a wonderful group Trentvalley, nearly 2 years of suffering with it and accepting my condition and taking all the advice I can, just rejoined and want to do fundraising for this wonderful membership club take care everyone, Littlejan 22 x
We are both vulnerable, my husband suffers from asthma & COPD. We wear FFP2 masks for local surgery visits & dentist, but step up a grade to FFP3 if going to hospital or somewhere we know we could be at the greatest risk. They are more expensive, but can’t put a price on saving a life! I worked for a microfiltration company supplying labs & the pharmacies with products for 21 years & the surgical masks don’t fit close enough to the face, & the material masks…well, tbh, i don’t understand why they are still allowed. Please take care…those who will not wear a mask now for the sake of others are selfish. Bet it would be different if the shoe was on the other foot! Personally, I find the FFP2 and FFP3 masks more comfortable to wear, & they make a much better seal & have better filters in them, too!
I am very sad they have stopped the essential mask wearing, At my hospital appointment this week I was asked to take a form to reception, I stood back as there was a well dressed young man asking directions from the receptionist. She said to put the form in the tray, which was in front of him on the desk and I said I was just waiting for the man without a mask to leave. He said that is OK, I replied Ok for you maybe but not for me as i have no immune system, he just said they don't work anyway. Had he not had a small child with him my reply may have been very rude. Is it a wonder the hospitals are short staffed if they are treating patients without masks. He had just taken the child for an eye test. And I had noticed them in the waiting area, him maskless. I assure you I will be wearing mine even after I get my 4th jab next week. C&C groceries and avoiding as many shops etc as I can . I do feel family wise I have wasted two years of my life, but it is worldwide not something I have to endure alone.
You don't get in the door of our hospital without an FFP2 mask now, a surgical mask was acceptable at first - and the rather useless temp check!
I do wear a mask - for others, not so much for myself. I feel very confident that I'd be fine if I caught Covid but that's my personal choice.
I wear mine always , once I’m out of the car x
I wore a mask even before Covid. If I had to help watch my grandchildren who were unwell, I wore a mask. I wear it in large gatherings but have occasionally forgotten it in my car. My son-in-law has Covid right now for the second time. The grand daughters had to stay home from school. I believe one of the girls has it also and is being tested today. We were all together last weekend for my brother-in-laws funeral. So I was exposed but tested six days out as negative.It’s all around us so the best thing is to wear a mask as much as you can. I’ll be wearing it to church today and choosing my seat carefully.
Still wearing mine, FFP2 or 3, and not intending to do anything different any time in the near future.
He was the only one not wearing one that visit so I presume he was one of those who wouldn't have worn one if asked as they have "their rights" or he would have gave a reason and not just said they don 't work. Normally everyone is masked, but they seem to rely on peoples conscience.
I live in Canada where we have protests going on about lifting all precautions of covid.Masks,mandates and all freedoms not to be vaccinated.Its really scaring me.I feel violated because I took three doses and we have many that didn't take any.I truly hope they don't win!!!
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