Passengers must continue to wear masks on London’s buses, trains and trams, Mayor Sadiq Khan has said, despite the Government dropping mask requirements elsewhere. While it will no longer be legally enforceable from January 26th – the police will no longer be able to fine you – it will remain a condition of carriage, so TfL can prevent entry or kick you off. The BBC has more.
Earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the end of Plan B pandemic restrictions, including scrapping the legal requirement for mask-wearing on public transport, in shops and schools.
But Mr. Khan says passengers must continue to don a face covering as a condition of carriage, due to the continuing threat of Omicron.
Some 30% of Londoners are unvaccinated.
The restrictions introduced in December also encouraged working from home and mandated Covid passes for some major events.
After examining the latest data, the Mr. Johnson told the Commons that the restrictions would end on January 26th.
But Mr. Khan said he wanted Londoners to continue to mask up, as “sadly this is not the end of our fight against the virus”.
He said: “If we have learnt anything from this pandemic, it is that we must not get complacent and undo all our hard work and sacrifices.
“That’s why face coverings will remain a condition of carriage on TfL services.
“I’m asking everyone in our capital to do the right thing and continue to wear a face covering when travelling on TfL services to keep us all protected and to prevent further restrictions from being necessary later down the line.”
Does Khan really believe that the requirement to wear a mask on public transport has sent Omicron into decline, or is he just making a cynical political calculation? I hope it’s the latter as at least then he can make the cynical calculation the other way once he realises the wind has changed. My fear is that he really believes the fairy story that filthy face rags stop Covid outbreaks.
Worth reading in full.
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I still can’t believe he was voted in. Of course it didn’t help the right split the vote amongst themselves.
Mr.Khan cannot possibly be this uneducated on Masks. Paper masks are useless as are cloth masks, what is going on. If the gov’t rules masks are obsolete how can he possibly override the gov’t. I guess one hell of a lot of people will simply become exempt Mr. Khan. I do wish at least of a few of the politicians would educate themselves on covid and PPE and social distancing. It really would be helpful. I know politicians are not the sharpest pencils in the box, but it is getting tiring.
Just bugger off Sad Khan!
Sadiq Khan – an ansolute bellend who is so dumb he doesn’t even notice that his Covid comments are a crock of shit
Khan is a control freak. Simple.
He loves the willy waving, telling people they must wear these medical splash guards as symbols confirming their subjugation and acceptance of his power over them.
Too many of these sick fucks about these days. They need to be brought down a peg or two.
I was recently telling the story of Dick Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, to my grand-daughter.Then I thought of the present incumbent and wondered how on earth we had allowed such a creature as Khan into this most English of roles. It’s wrong,wrong, wrong! We should not recognise him, nor indeed any other than an Englishman to run our capital city.
Som that means Khan will keep wearing the Mr Bean (back from holiday) mask?
He is pushing for women to get used to having their faces covered and he knows it has to be done by stealth. Anyone who complies is acknowledging they wont to be controlled.
When I go on the tube, I see a lot of people either without masks or taking them off as soon as they are seated. This will become the norm as restrictions are relaxed so what planet is Sadiq Khan living on?
Khan is a virtual signalling weasel. He has more or less bankrupted Transport for London. He also only suggested a few days ago that people should pay for travelling through London in their own cars by the mile.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60030127
This is a man who very rarely uses public transport if at all. But as Mayor of London he was quite happy to use his publicly-funded car to drive him to a park so he can take his dog for a walk.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9915019/Sadiq-Khan-spotted-using-cavalcade-cars-drive-4-5-miles-walk-dog.html
The interesting thing is the all that can happen if you don’t wear a mask is TfL can refuse you permission to travel. Moreover, if you say you’re exempt there’s nothing they can do about it. Further, they have no legal right to ask you what is your exemption. It is (as far as I know) against the Equality Act.
In fact, when the government mask mandate came in some weeks ago Transport of London admitted in a letter on the TfL webpage that they really didn’t have any enforceable powers to stop people travelling on public transport in London without a mask in the first place!
He’s nothing more than a petty tyrant, he’s ruining London as tourist hub, economically, infrastructure and making residents lives a misery.
The fact that he says something doesn’t people believe in it. Declaring exemption from lunacy could be quite common!
I see Chris Whitty has logged on to downvote what he doesn’t like
Go to the TFL website, order a badge for exemption, no reason required, and get it and travel without a mask. Beat them at their own game, if everyone got one there is nothing they could do but they’d get the message
Did he drive a bus in London?
Just say you are exempt (from ridiculous rules/guidance/regulations/conditions) – works every time.
It has to be said, Tosser!
If we have learnt one thing from this so-called pandemic, it’s that woke pseudo-left politicians will keep sacrificing the population in order to maintain the notion of a dangerous epidemic for as long as they can. At best, they honestly believe that the abstract goals they’re aiming to achieve are worth more than any individual’s or sets of individual’s actual physical needs or lives, that is, they dangerous crackpots. At worst, they’ve simply been bought and/or are profiting in other ways from the situation. Which means they’re criminals. Under no circumstances can they be considered responsible leaders of people.
“For the greater good” The words of communists (fake or otherwise).
Is there no way to force these ‘task mask’
idiotsadvocates to specify which masks have to be worn in order to achieve whatever it is they believe is to be achieved?From what I read the only mask that significantly prevents breathing of aerosolised virus is a p100 filter mask, but I have never heard our pontificators telling us to wear them to block breathing of the virus.
Spellchecker strikes again task == face as in face mask not task mask
Khan is acting rationally.
Masks do make a difference, so it makes sense to minimise transmission.
There is no downside, regardless of what people on this site “think” (if that is the right word)
Masks do fuck all! Go and have a look at the infections graphs for any country and see if you can tell whether and when there was a muzzle mandate. You will find that it’s impossible to tell. So if the muzzles don’t have any measureable impact on infections (i.e. no change in the graph trajectory when they are introduced), in what sense do they ‘make a difference’?
As for downsides, there are many – you are either completely uninformed on the subject or you are a troll.
That’s your attempt at evidence is it?
How do you prove that the mandates did not influence the trajectory?
You know how to look at a graph, right? How to see a change in trajectory (or lack of one)?
If you genuinely want to see the lack of evidence there is plenty of it out there, incuding a number of studies (and at least one RCT) which show no impact. Not hard to find if you look for it. It’s generally expected that commenters on here are reasonably well informed and can find evidence for themselves.
But you probably don’t want to see anything which would challence the maskivist viewpoint…
That’s impossible as this would require rerunning the experiment with all other possibly variant factors unchanged. You’re probably convinced that this is a really neat logical trap. However, consistent with the German proverb Wer anderen eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein[*] how to you propose to prove that the mandates did influence anything? Answer: That’s equally impossible. We don’t know and we never will. Because of this, the mandate shouldn’t ever have been introduced because We cannot know what will happen if we do X is never a valid reason for doing X.
[*] He who sets a trap for others will end up stepping into it.
Bonus points for the use of a German Proverb
Love the dry humour.
“Masks do make a difference, so it makes sense to minimise transmission.”
Unlike most dailysceptic readers I can agree masks probably do reduce transmission in places like the Tube.
However, the second part ‘so it makes sense to minimise transmission’ I disagree with. I believe in individual freedoms. We should consider whether it’s right to compel something. I feel uncomfortable compelling people. Persuasion should be the governments primary tool. Compulsion is dangerous
According to my real-world experience with them, restricting intake of oxygen, something which necessarily happens when any physical barrier is directly in the breathing path, has quite a lot of downsides. And that’s regardless of you asserting (thinking decidedly not being right term here) that basic physics, like the mechanics of accelerating items with a mass, are just wrong in the weird universe you claim to believe to be inhabitating.
But for us in the real world, that’s unfortunately not an option physcial mechanic (German term literally translated into English) decidedly does exist here.
“Masks do make a difference”
Yes they do. They make it look as if the whole country is mentally ill.
Chris Whitty’s logged on I see
Like all lefties he wants demonstrate he has power over the great unwashed. Exercising that power doesnt have to actually achieve anything and quite often has a detrimental effect, but his fragile ego needs the validation of messing with peoples lives and showing his ‘authority’.
Will anyone do it? I hope not – I wont. Maybe mass disobedience will slap him back in his place and make it clear where he stands in the food chain. Though I doubt it as hes just as deluded as Livingstone as far as how important he is.
How did we end up in a situation where a stupid scumbag can dictate health policy for millions without a shred of evidence that it makes any sense?
It would appear that he is burdened with a sense of responsibility.
The evidence is there….you just choose to ignore what you don’t like.
What’s he been smoking?
Hot Air (heated helium).
Certainly ‘having a laugh’.😂
“Some 30% of Londoners are unvaccinated.” Nobody knows that with any useful precision.
The data is in the public domain, so yes they do.
Like the Scotch and Welsh mayors, he’s just making it clear that London isn’t in England.
How they run the Tube nowadays in London:
The good news is that 30% of Londoners have the good sense not to be vaccinated.
If the legal position is that riding the Tube etc. without a face-rag is neither a crime nor a civil wrong but is “only” something that TfL droids can throw you off for, then the Tube is no longer public transport. It is no longer a public service.
Public access to a place means that anyone can go there so long as they don’t break the law or commit a civil wrong, and provided they pay the entry fee if there is one. It shouldn’t be relevant if they otherwise act in a way the mayor or a manager doesn’t like.
The 30% not jabbed in London are largely Labiur-voting ‘ethnics’ who voted this slimeball in to be mayor!
Turkeys voting for Eid…
Some racism on display here.
Not really, I’m one of the ethnics.
Didnt vote for Saddick though.
Time to dig your Victim Card out of your pocket? Or are you just offended on behalf of others?
What an odious little turd of a man he is
OK so therefore TFL will have absolutely no problem in publishing a copy of their formal risk assessment, as required under the Health & Safety Work 1999 Legislation (part 3).
Hopefully they will include in this assessment, the risk of someone with a filthy bacteria-laden mask potentially spreading something onto others on the TFL network; hence why during the peak of hospitalizations in March-April 2020, the advice was for most people to avoid wearing masks, as a general rule.
This squirt needs to get back in his container.
No, it’s far more simple than that.
Hard left, unprincipled and incompetent shysters like Khan, Sturgeon, Arden and co have used covid to grab power. It must be prised, finger by painful finger, out of their grubby hands.
They won’t lay it down willingly.
Do you even understand what hard left is?
You. And hard work is what you are.