'Covid ruined Christmas - if are not utterly selfish please wear a mask'

03 January 2023 , 19:01

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Push to wear masks in all public places (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Everyone I know either is, or just has been, ill. With flu, with coronavirus or with some other NUB (Nasty Unidentified Bug). Everyone.

I couldn’t even begin to count the amount of festive get-togethers and plans called off due to sickness, and my own Christmas had to be cancelled because we all got Covid.

We tried to make the best of it for our little boy, of course, but it was – between you and me – absolutely miserable. He was stuck indoors for all but four days of his school ­holidays, torture for an eight-year-old, even if normal rules and restrictions are lifted. Somehow I am as bad at Mario Kart as I ever was though, which proves that in some cases practice does not, in fact, make anything close to perfect.

(Side-note: I was considerably iller, for much longer, and continued to test positive for days more than my recently boosted/vaccinated husband and son. It’s been over a year since under 50s were offered a jab. If Rishi’s reading, please, Sir, can we have some more?)

Now, in the grips of a twindemic of flu and Covid, with Strep A still lurking, kids back in class, and the NHS in such terrifying crisis that 500 people a week are dying ­unnecessarily, the UK Health ­Security Agency’s Professor Susan Hopkins has given surely the most needless to say advice ever. If you’re unwell and have to go out, you should wear a mask.

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Close, Professor, but no cigar. Why only wear a mask when you’re already ill? Wear one whenever you’re in a public place at the moment, and stop yourself catching anything in the first place! Duh. This could not be more obvious. Not all ­superheroes wear capes, but they do wear masks. Superspreaders, however, don’t. Simple as that. (Although also, test and isolate too while you’re at it. It’s no longer the law, but it should be.)

The current situation is undeniably bad, we don’t want it to get even worse, and this is an easy way we can all help each other, ourselves, the NHS, and all who ail in her.

How could anyone not be compelled by that 500 people a week statistic alone? Losing someone you love is painful enough – knowing that they died needlessly would be literally intolerable.

And yet, of course, TEDIOUSLY, there will be some who complain about the massive inconvenience of having to put a bit of cloth over their faces every now and then. Who say that they won’t be told what to do.

If only these stubborn blowhards – who presumably listen when they’re told not to jump off cliffs, or to wear a seatbelt, or not to enter the lion enclosure at the zoo – only hurt themselves with their ignorant noncompliance. Unfortunately they don’t – they hurt all of us, indiscriminately, and have helped ensure that Covid is still a major concern three years after it first rocked up to wreak havoc.

Wearing a mask is not a complicated, multi-layered political issue, it’s a very straightforward, clear social one. If you care about other people, you’ll wear a mask. If you want an ambulance to come when you dial 999 in an emergency, you’ll wear a mask. If you want life-saving medical assistance on an actual bed in a hospital when you need it, you’ll wear a mask. If you want flu, Covid and NUBs to be stopped in their tracks, you’ll wear a mask. If you’re not utterly selfish and heartless, you’ll wear a mask.

Polly Hudson