A growing number of retail giants are going to continue asking customers to wear face masks in their stores after the much-anticipated ‘easing’ of restrictions on ‘Freedom Day’. The Government says that it “expects and recommends” people to continue mask-wearing after July 19th – a plea that has so far been backed by Waterstones, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and more. What’s most disappointing is that this appears to be what customers want. BBC News has the story.
Sainsbury’s said signs and tannoy announcements would remind shoppers to cover their faces.
Tesco said it wanted to “be on the safe side”.
The chain will also continue to limit the number of shoppers in store at any one time.
The Government has said it “expects and recommends” shoppers in England to wear face masks from Monday. But the legal requirement to cover your face in enclosed spaces will end. Different rules apply in the devolved nations.
The new guidance leaves firms to decide their own safety policies after July 19th when Covid rules are lifted. …
Primark has said it won’t have signage requesting customers to wear masks but hopes they will continue to do so. John Timpson, Founder of the keycutting and shoe repair chain, said the decision would be left to customers.
Sainsbury’s said its strategy reflected feedback from customers and colleagues, with the majority of those surveyed in favour of keeping the mask policy in place.
The chain said some Covid measures, such as screens between self-service checkouts and checkout queues, would be gradually removed. However screens between checkout staff and customers will remain in place. …
Dr Roger Barker, Policy Director at the Institute of Directors, said: “Like everybody else, businesses across the country having been awaiting ‘Freedom Day’ with bated breath.
“But instead we have had a series of mixed messages and patchwork requirements from Government that have dampened that enthusiasm.”
Worth reading in full.
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I’ve been dropping in to my local Tesco and Sainsbury’s when passing, even when I don’t want to buy anything. Just to show my face. At least one security guard in each is similarly sans-muzzle.
I’m afraid anybody that didn’t see this ongoing virtue signalling continuing must be blind. The question is, now there is no legal requirement for claiming mask exemption, will the stores feel duty bound to police it themselves? I guess I’ll find out after Monday …
Tesco might invite me to wear a mask and I will politely decline their invitation.
As for the government expecting and advising people to wear them I refuse to do anything that a serial philanderer and liar expects or advises me to do.
Good to know that these various retail outlets after ‘struggling’ NOT, along with all the rest of us who might be about to go bust after the last 18 months of bullshit, can happily manage without revenue from independent minded punters.
They’re content to accept only dosh from the latest evolutionary variant of easily manipulated Humankind, Homo-Bovinus. One wonders why they might only be interested in this gullible easily manipulated variant. Hmm.
I won’t be giving any of them my money. Now or ever again!
I remember a time when all businesses werer keen for sales from all honest, and in many cases, not so honest customers.
Unless they make it a condition of entry under contract law, it doesn’t matter what they request, recommend, ask, beg or grovel for. It’s as meaningless as them saying they hope everyone wears a red nose on red nose day.
If they DO make it a condition of entry, I am pretty sure you can still shop there maskless while claiming exemption under the DDA.
However, anywhere that makes masking a condition of entry will never get a penny of my money ever again.
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Insanity, endless insanity.
If Tesco want to be on the ‘safe side’, ? I suggest having fully qualified Doctors at the entrances, so each customer can be given a full medical check-up. Then Tesco’s can make a decision about which ‘medical conditions’ they find acceptable for entry?
Pandering to the Fearties.
I (reluctantly) started wearing a mask in shops in November and declared myself Exempt a couple of months ago, including Sainsbury. I’ve only been “reminded” twice and on declaration of exemption nothing was said.
I continue to be Exempt.
Boycott these businesses and let the mask wearing bedwetters carry on…Mask wearers are so deeply hypnotised there really is no hope.
God help us. What a nation of wimps we have become, so easily made fearful, too thick to do any research into the real plan.
Bollocks to that! This is government shifting the onus onto businesses, expecting them in the most devious way to enforce the guidelines.
I’ve not shopped in the big four supermarkets for over a year now. It is good to be free of them
The managers of the companies make these decisions from way on up high sitting in their ivory towers without having a clue what is really happening at the coal face. Meanwhile, the managers that actually run the stores roll their eyes and know that there is nothing they can really do if people want to go maskless and have neither the motivation or inclination to do anything and will instruct their staff accordingly.
I never wear a mask, either in shops or on public transport, and nobody ever says anything. I am amazed that so many people are afraid to simply assert their freedom to do as they wish. Stop being such cowards!
Ditto. Wearing masks in respect of other people’s feelings is simply perpetuating the fear factor.
When the great madness started, I switch to home delivery to avoid visiting supermarkets with their masks, distancing, hand sanitizers, and bouncers on the door. I don’t know whether to continue or to make a point of visiting and challenging.
They’re much more relaxed now. The staff don’t care any more.
I’ve never worn a mask in a shop or supermarket. Any requests for me to do so were/are met with a very curt reply.
Go to the BEIS website. Get to the bit about face masks. Exemptions apply, just as before. Print off the guidance that business have to give to those they compel to wear face coverings. And report anyone you see who does not comply as they are putting your health at risk. Example when putting on their rags; wash their hands throughly with soap and water for twenty seconds…. No sod in Tesco will do that so Tesco’s are putting everyone at risk. It’s just about reporting what you see folks
Sainsbury’s already lost any custom I might have potentially gave them with their extremely divisive cultural Marxist political messaging on social media. They chant about inclusivity while telling people to stay away from their stores if they don’t bow to BLM. And now they think they can police us with the government’s criminal covid rules?
They can fuck off.
Hilarious people are still playing along with this bollocks
July 19th is freedom day.
WHAT F×CKING FREEDOM?
So they are pandering to the minority.
So the government advice is mask/dont mask.
Judgment day is coming!
So come on everybody, people got the power. Just stop shopping at any place that has requirements for stupid restrictions… Time for people to stand together once and for all to stop this crazy. If we all boycott together
What if every shop and other venue where you live has stupid restrictions?
But they won’t. You are falling for the psy-ops and panicking unnecessarily. Think for yourself, and stand up for what you believe in. If you don’t want to wear a face mask just say in a calm but decisive voice, I AM EXEMPT.
Trust me, all your problems instantly go away.
I think we should just throw our masks away.
Why has a supermarket that I have spent an unthinkable amount of money at over the years got the right to tell me what to wear on my face. I am their customer, not their subject.
Or ignore them. I have shopped in a wide range of supermarkets throughtout this nonsense and have never been challenged by staff or other customers even once. If they didn’t do much to enforce it then, they are unlikely to enforce a ‘request’.
If we assume that mask-wearing helps reduce the spread significantly (which is by no means a given) then I think there’s a stronger case for keeping mask and distancing requirements in supermarkets and public transport while repealing them for non-essential businesses, because it is more difficult for the severely immunocompromised (who’d not only be a lot more likely to die of Covid if they caught it, but would also not benefit from vaccination) to avoid these places.
It may help protect such unfortunate people until enough of the rest of the population can be vaccinated to reach herd immunity and thus bring down the virus’s prevalence…
a) There’s no real evidence masks (or face coverings) work very well
b) I would have expected us to have reached herd immunity already with 2/3s of the entire population vaccinated and 95% of the vulnerable age groups. Also there has been natural immunity created from having the virus (which is never discussed). How much immunity do you want?
c) But then, in the same breath, we are told that the vaccinations may not work against ‘variants’ so your idea of ever reaching herd immunity through the vax programme becomes redundant, as does the effectiveness of vaccines at all and our social responsibility to take them
There’s no real-world evidence that masks make any difference, and plenty of evidence that they don’t
There’s also plenty of real-world evidence that vaccinations as they currently stand do not stop the spread of the virus and therefore are not getting us closer to herd immunity
Finally, I am a selfish bastard and do not want to wear a mask for the benefit of others
Someone who is “severely immunocomptomised” (that’s not just a housewife fashion like “lactose intolerance”) can’t go to the supermarket because this would kill him. Hence, you take one to the supermarket with you because YOU want other people to be forced to wear masks.
I am severely immunocompromised. It wouldn’t stop me going to the supermarket in normal times.
Then you’re not because otherwise, your immune system wouldn’t be able to handle any kind of infection.
NB: That’s my definition of “severe”, namely “demonstrably life-threatening in ordinary circumstance” and not “but I believe it’s really bad!”
Indeed, some people are allergic to the sun
If masks work then those compromised can wear one that filters the air inbound.
If they don’t then how does it help?
Am I the only one that can see this?
Good point — perhaps would be better to provide free N95 masks to the immunocompromised if it meant the rest of the population didn’t need masks at all…
One word : “Bollocks”
How can vaccination contribute to reaching herd immunity when it doesn’t prevent people from catching the disease?
Fuck off
Just what do you think all these “immunocompromised” people did before March 2020? I can assure you that in 60 years of shopping, I have NEVER seen another human being walking around in a plastic bubble, nor for that matter, wearing a fade mask.
I can only assume that they were happy to live with the risks of living their lives without spending every waking minute thinking about how every virus on earth could potentially kill them. In fact, I would lay odds that most would find it most distasteful that people like you, use their disabilities to forward your own agenda. Your arguments mirror those of people who take offence on behalf of others despite not being remotely affected by the issue.
Have you ever tried catching water with a sieve?
I think people have to simply stop mask-wearing now. If it’s not illegal, they can’t really enforce it.
If everyone who disagrees with this circus stops wearing one and starts showing their face, we’ll all have safety in numbers
does anyone know where I can gain access to a bazooka?
I’ve been wearing my exempt badge since 21-6.
Was planning to hang it up on Monday but, guess not. Will take my first trip through London on Tuesday as we head to the coast for holiday. Let’s see how the Tube Gestapo handle us.
And again, where is the real World data showing that the masks used by society reduce infections by any measurable amount? There is as much proof of their effectiveness against Covid as there is that is stops tiger and polar bear attacks. At least I know of no one who has worn one who has been attacked by them, but lots who still got Covid.
It’s not just that they are inefficient against the virus.
They pose a serious health hazard and risk.
Noone with an IQ above 50 would ever wear a community mask again after having read this:
https://www.hausarzt-kenzingen.de/aktuelles/
Tesco are talking through their rear ends. The husband went into one the other day and said he’d forgotten his mask. They welcomed him in. Plenty not wearing masks including staff.
Slightly off topic but here in my fairly quiet corner of South East London, outdoor mask wearing is on the increase! Either fear due to case numbers or people showing their virtue before the 19th. Either way it’s not based on science.
I counted 23 out of 100 in central London yesterday.
Outdoors!? That’s just fucking crazy! Oh wait a minute, indeed I have tumbled down the rabbit hole. I’m in a macabre carnival of gormless masked souls shuffling along under an oppressive, filthy tyrant (but a disheveled pig, instead of mean-tempered Queen).
Bear in mind this was primarily a business rather than residential area so the frightened old, who make up the majority of outdoor maskers in my home town, would have been largely absent. Mainly young and middle aged office workers as far as I could see.
so if the mask cause damage to people are the shops who made me wear them liable?