London commuters hoping to return to normality after July 19th are in for disappointment, as Sadiq Khan says face masks will remain compulsory on transport networks within the city beyond “Freedom Day” and for “as long as the virus is still with us”. London is the first city to announce that it will continue mandating mask-wearing after this date. Greater Manchester looks set to be the next, with Mayor Andy Burnham refusing to “rule out” keeping restrictions. BBC News has the story.
Sadiq Khan said he was not prepared to put Tube, tram and other transport users at risk by relaxing the rules on face coverings.
Face masks have been mandatory on public transport for the past year to reduce the spread of the virus.
But those rules will be replaced with Government guidance advising passengers to wear masks only on busy services.
England is removing most of its Covid restrictions next Monday, and while Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he expects masks to be worn in crowded places, such as on a busy Tube train, their use will no longer be compulsory.
But Mr Khan has gone further and made it a condition of carriage for the Tube, bus, tram, DLR, Overground and TfL Rail.
This means that, despite the easing of restrictions on July 19th, it will be listed as a condition in a legal agreement between TfL and its customers.
Mr Khan said: “We know from the Government’s own advisors and from the World Health Organisation, that wearing a face covering indoors does reduce transmissions.
“It leads to greater public safety and greater public confidence as well.
“As long as the virus is still with us, and as long as we’re still concerned about the virus being transmitted, we will make it compulsory.”
He said he was “confident you will see from Monday high levels of the rules being followed just like there have been since last June”.
TfL’s 400 enforcement officers will deny those without a face covering from using London transport, under the plan.
TfL staff and bus drivers will continue to remind passengers that masks are a requirement, Mr Khan said.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told Times Radio this morning that Sadiq Khan’s decision “makes sense”. He is quoted in the Guardian:
We expect carriers to provide rules or what we call conditions of carriage appropriate to their own circumstances. And obviously, London Underground is a particularly crowded network. And, of course, we said people should wear masks in crowded areas. So just in the same way as the airlines have made it a stipulation – an ongoing stipulation – we expected – indeed invited TfL – to do the same thing. So no surprises there. And if you think about it, it makes sense.
Also worth reading in full.
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Khaaaaaan!
The best part of Sadiq Khan dribbled down his mother’s leg.
So as the virus is going to be with us for ever – this mask mandate is indefinite? Only one way round it – non-compliance! At least you seem to be able to get away with it the U.K. – as I saw on a recent visit. Try it here in Belgium and I have a feeling they might shoot you!!
is Khan the Virus?
Only losers take the bus.
Stop press!
Only FFP3 (NP99) are effective, but only when properly fitted, and only for the particle size fractions they are designed to trap, and only for the time they are designed to remain effective….. which is typically 2 hours.
But you need goggles too as your eyes don’t just let light in!
We now know that
1) aerosol virus can consist of sub-micron to 100 micron particles that hang in still air for minutes to hours
2) different people exhale different ranges of particle sizes, and just by looking at them you cannot tell what particle sizes they are exhaling
3) some of these people are ‘super spreaders’ if they are infectious, others are not
4) whether you pick up enough viable viral particles in any space you are in depends on the density of particles
5) reducing the density of viral particles is best achieved by increasing the volume of ‘air’ in any occupied space, and not trying to block exhaled viral particles whose size fractions you don’t know with masks that will almost certainly not be effective at stopping those fractions.
The evidence to support the use of masks in the control of Covid 19 is gobbledygook. You will notice the absence of any TV or Radio media voice dissenting from current rhetoric.
Janet Daley in the Telegraph wrote on the manipulation of the media- it is also true of science. Interesting how the maskophiles- Dr Hillary and Sir Vallance sat in. Wimbledon. without a mask≥ Oh yes i forgot Covid not only possesses a GPS, speaks Welsh and loves travelling on the Tube but loves football !
Who cares! I would not be visiting Londistan the stab city anyway
The remaining mask wearers after the 19th will be showing their true personalities. If the mayor or an MP said putting your hand in a fire protects you against the virus, the mask wearer would do it…
Masks have mutated from an inconvenient, functionless piece of material into a magic weapon against Covid19. The are now a religious cult and to not believe is blasphemy. Guess I’ll go to mask Hell. I will not wear one. sorry Khan I follow the science not the religion!
And has Shapps explained in what way Khan makes sense? Has Khan explained apart from an assertion that masks “work”?
Not one of these people has cited any evidence whatsoever that the wearing of face coverings by the public has had a beneficial effect anywhere in the world. If the evidence existed they would be quoting it at every opportunity.
Indeed, it is not backed by any science. Mask orders are all about political theatre – they are an ostentatious symbol to keep the fear level of a phantom deadly virus dialled up to the max whilst allowing pollies and their public health tsars to appear strong and decisive, to be seen to be doing something to ‘keep people safe’.
Here, in South Australia, we are having another Pavlovian spasm of government-ordered restrictions and masks (in response to ‘zero ‘cases’, again – you can’t be too careful, I suppose!).
This little black duck will be happily flouting the edict, however, looking forward to meeting the other anti-maskers out in public and swapping notes on the madness.
As long as the virus is with us- so that’s forever then. ‘We know they reduce transmission’- ‘we’ know no such thing. How can this cobblers go unchallenged? The WHO says they work- even though last year they said they didn’t and they’ve changed tack for political reasons and not one journalist or media type has asked why or for evidence of their effectiveness. You might as well say that they ward off attacks by tigers as not one single mask wearer has been attacked by one on London transport. Khan is virtue signalling and no-one has what it takes to call him out on it. Politicians can now just make stuff up it seems- welcome to the future folks!
LOL – that’s what Sadiq thinks. I stopped wearing my ages ago.
…Sadiq’s pathetic posters and unbelievably frequent public address messages in many different voices only hastened the mask removal.
Masks will be permanent then and the sadist revels in this elementary fact.
Grant Shapps gives the game away – the Government had intended that masks should be compulsory on London’s public transport i.e. before MPs had voted for Johnson’s phoney ‘Freedom Day.’ Clearly, the compulsory wearing of masks on public transport will soon spread to where I live – in St Albans. I give it a week. Waterstones have said they will encourage people to wear masks. And our Oxfam Bookshop twice refused me entry during the ‘previous’ lockdown – not for not wearing a mask, but for declining to use their hand sanitiser. The majority of people have been frightened out of their senses by the propaganda, and there are always people who like being Covid enforcers in their own pathetic little patch.
In Khan’s neck of the woods, you’re likelier to be stabbed than to contract covid.
maybe vaccines have something in them to make people so compliant
Grant Shapps has backed the move, meaning neurotic Boris has agreed, meaning it will stay and masks will return.
If refusing to wear a mask is not against the law, and it won’t be come 21/7 then there is little Khan can do if people refuse to wear the things. He could attempt a civil action, I suppose. Good luck with that!
He intends to make it a condition of carriage and is considering introducing a bylaw as well.
I doubt if much will change: I expect the BTP will do a “crackdown” or “enforcement exercise” for a week or two, and there will be a fresh wave of the “let’s protect each other” posters and announcements, then it will be as now: there will be the brave and bare-faced, and the tutting and baa-baaing sheep. Will the staff be made to muzzle up? I’ve been noticing lots of bare-faced staff, even on the front line.
These viruses will always be with us – you cannot escape this fact – viruses of all kinds will never ever go away including this one – even the Spanish Flu of 1918 never went away – it simply mutated and combined with other viruses to create new strains of that virus – all mutating and infecting our bodies endlessly – but most of the time we simply become immune to them – a lot of the time we don’t even know we have been infected … thats what our immune systems are there to do and have done for billions of years – defend us in this endless battle against viruses in all their mutations until one day when we are very old a frail and our immune systems weaker than it used to be we may succumbe to them – in the meantime we usually enjoyed what precious time we have on this planet.
Christ, its like living in the Dark Ages – what with the Mad Mullah of Londonistan and Emperor Nero at Number 10 … the world has gone completely potty.
From 21st June I’ve noticed an increase and increasing number mask free, in that first week of cancelled freedom 3 people including a staff member in a large DIY chain mask free, last weekend there was no one in the petrol station shop wearing a mask, anecdotally encouraging
It really is this simple folks
I suppose the one thing this whole catastrophic saga has revealed is the truly authoritarian nature of the likes of Khan, Drakeford, Sturgeon, Johnson, Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson and Michie. Never foget this, come voting time, or in the future.
If there is any voting.
Could you get your sandwiches out and pretend you are in sitting in a cafe? And is this any virus?
“This means that, despite the easing of restrictions on July 19th, it will be listed as a condition in a legal agreement between TfL and its customers.”
That is not an “agreement” at all. The word “agreement” implies both parties discussing and then mutually something. These are conditions being imposed by one party on another.
In any commercial contract the company can include what conditions it likes. It can say: « if you get on my bus or train, you are impliedly accepting the company terms and conditions ». However there is law which says contract conditions must be fair: The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. Yes it was passed that long ago. So the question is, is it fair to eject someone from a bus or train for not wearing a mask, when the law of the land says there is no obligation to wear one? The answer is obviously « no ». Which means this amendment to carriage conditions is dead in the water should any one challenge it in the courts
There is no legal obligation about you have to wear (I guess wearing nothing might come under some kind of indecent exposure law) but many institutions have rules about what you are allowed to wear. How is wearing masks different?
Other items of clothing don’t restrict your breathing, make it difficult for you to speak and be heard, and to see human faces – all of which are fundamental human activities that have been practiced in public since time immemorial
Rules about other items of clothing have evolved over centuries and are widely accepted and apart from indecent exposure are not enforced by law but by convention, and the etiquette is based on social norms that have grown organically rather than manufactured overnight by the biggest propaganda campaign in human history, all of which is based on the barefaced lie that COVID is exceptional
The wearing of masks is presented as scientifically based when the evidence is that they make no noticeable difference in real world scenarios
“implicitly accepting” though is not the same as “agreeing”. Because you have no say or choice in the matter. Possibly it’s the same in legal jargon, but not in the real world.
There is a significant distinction between private companies agreeing terms of business and an essential public service provider imposing terms unilaterally on customers who have no option other than to use the service. You might as well argue that no one has to use the fluoridated water that is the only liquid that can be obtained from their taps.
The Conditions of Carriage are meaningless in respect of behaviours on trains. The worst that can be done is they take away your Oyster Card (so you use your credit or debit card instead to tap in). Fare evasion is dealt with under the byelaws, a very different kettle of fish. So adding wearing face masks to the C of C has the same weighting as the rule not to put your feet on the seats.
Instead of organisation a “pants off” day on the tube, the next one should be a “mask off” day.
“As long as the virus is still with us, and as long as we’re still concerned about the virus being transmitted, we will make it compulsory.” ……. So, basically masks forever then.
No. See my answer above
Ah London, of course the only place that matters in the entire UK. To people who live there I say carry on defying these tyrants.
But honestly the rest of the country don’t give a flying fandango what sad man Khan thinks or says, and last time I looked that was the majority of us.!
I am sorry that people in London have to listen to the pocket dictator.
We don’t. The worst that can happen if not wearing a mask next Monday is to be asked to leave. Just get on the next bus!
Dear Mr Khan, please show me the science that says virusses bounce off masks. I do understand that the masks stop larger aerosols, but please explain what happens when the moisture evaporates and the viruses (viri?) are left on their own floating in the air.
I keep wondering at that. Strangely, no-one seems interested.