Last week, the Daily Sceptic reported that some NHS trusts would be dropping their mask requirement following a change in central guidance, following a tip-off from an NHS insider. Perhaps predictably, any change in central policy has not translated into many (or any) trusts dropping their masks and other restrictions, though we have seen one internal newsletter that states its procedures are under review.
In better news, one reader got in touch to say that a private hospital he visited has dropped its mask requirement as of this week.
I went to hospital today in Suffolk as an outpatient (private hospital, Nuffield Health). This was its first day (Wednesday June 1st) of being mask free – staff, consultants and patients.
I asked if this was in all England’s hospitals, NHS or private, but they didn’t know; they had received communication that morning from their people.
I have to say, all staff appeared so happy to get rid of the muzzles, and as patients booking into reception were advised they didn’t need to wear a mask, they all took them off.
I noticed pharmacy dispensers at the in-store Lloyd’s in Sainsbury’s were also mask free; they said it had been like this for a few weeks.
The next test of sanity will be visiting Specsavers.
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these are supposed to be medical professionals and as such should really understand the studies behind the lack of effectiveness behind mask wearing in certain situations, does not give you a lot of confidence in them if there too busy flogging jabs and flatly refusing to disband any mask mandate.
In other words, state employed jobsworths.
I took Mrs Crisigarden to Airedale Hospital near Bradford yesterday and it was like covid had never not happened. An elderly man was standing in the entrance handing masks out to all and shoved one in my hand grumpily when we both refused. I left it on top of a trolley when we got round the corner. When we reached the required department, another jobsworth type lady behind glass tried again to get us to put one on and when we refused she offered a visor, which we laughed at. Then she told me I wasn’t allowed to wait with her and sent me home. I found this infuriating. So no sign of anything being dropped in Airedale – the madness lives on.
I’d just flatly refuse. What will they do; call security? Who have absolutely no power or authority to do anything that the receptionist cant.
I was asked to wear a mask at the dentist yesterday; a polite but clear and firm ‘no thank you’ was the end of the matter.
My daughter is training to be a nurse. Recently she’s suffered a severe chest infection. I asked her if she thought perhaps being masked all day made it worse. Glory be! She agreed! Up to now she’s always been all for them, wearing them to stand up in restaurants, etc, until quite recently. Is this a gleam of common sense I see before me?
From what I can see, the guidance of 14 April has been dropped… but for further information on guidance…. yup – same stuff as before. 14 April. Nothing explicit that might support a change. I took a photo of the main banner on my phone and will show it when I next go to visit mum in hospital… I’ve recently been pushing the boundaries… I’d like DS to find out a bit more if possible.
I visited the Hay Festival earlier this week. Hardly a mask in sight, and the majority are Guardian reader types.
The one jarring note was the one-way entry system at the bookshop. I deliberately tried to go in via the exit but a burly guard stopped me. I wandered around the bookshop and made a point of leaving via the entrance.
I’m almost afraid to ask why you were at a Guardian reader infested festival.
“I wandered around the bookshop and made a point of leaving via the entrance.” It’s like a line from a book that was written 70 years ago. “Tears” emoji.
I had an outpatient appointment a couple of weeks ago and wasn’t required to wear a mask – security guard offered one along with the gel slime but I just gave a polite but firm “no thank-you” and carried on. Why do people find this so hard?
Over the past 12 months I have had blood drawn twice at local GP surgery and have also attended dental checkups on three occasions. Never worn a mask and have never been challenged.
You’re lucky, I don’t wear them but I’ve had 3 arguements with GP, asthma nurse and dentist. Not great for someone with anxiety and breathing issues.
“No thank you” and end the discussion. Don’t get drawn into an argument.
The one and only time I’ve managed to see my doctor face to muzzle (he was masked, visored, fully hazmatted, etc) he wanted me to wear one too which was laughable since he was examining something on my face. He couldn’t shove me out of the door quickly enough.
i know way of topic, but tom macdonald has released a new song called “the system” the chorus lyrics really sum the last two yrs plus up
“welcome to the system, everyone’s a victim, doesn’t matter if your black or white it hates you all, hear inside the system, violence is a symptom, fighting for what’s right but somehow everyone is wrong”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OshNahVo9-c
Saw this a few weeks ago and although not usually my thing, I really like it.
The tune isn’t my vibe personally, but it’s a great message and very fitting.
I hope this is a turning point and not a subliminal statement about the effectiveness of the vaccines etc
I had an eye operation yesterday under local anaesthetic in a private hospital. They were still requiring masks, though they didn’t cause a fuss when I said i was exempt.
Nearly everyone I saw was wearing a mask, though some were on the chin, so just paying lip service.
Also masks were not required by patients in the patient’s rooms, and I didn’t need to wear a mask during the operation either, despite the surgeon having to get very close to my face.
Interestingly, they require lateral flow tests to be taken at home, but they asked for no proof of this. Ironically, I’m pretty sure that I caught delta covid from the very same hospital last year.
My opticians are still requiring masks, AND if you dare to say you’re exempt they require a lateral flow test beforehand! I won’t go back until they drop that madness.
Spec savers are fine, in there today mask-free, no hassle.
Yep, I went to specsavers for new glasses instead.
I went to specsavers a few days ago and guess who I bumped into.
Everybody!
I spent Spring Break at Disney World with the family. Disney had just done away with the mandatory mask requirement. However, those of us who stayed at a Disney resort had to wear our masks on the busses that took us to the theme parks.
I didn’t get the “science” that led to this requirement. It couldn’t have had anything to do with people being packed inside in tight spaces … because once we got to the parks, we waited in long lines that weaved into and outside of tight interior spaces … where we didn’t have to wear our masks. We were packed like sardines in many of these places.
The virus must have know it could spread on a bus, but not in the waiting chambers of the Star Wars rides.
I guess Disney had to exhibit a little control over the paying customers.
Looks like the NHS issued guidance today that masks are no longer required: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/national-infection-prevention-and-control/
Kept that quiet…
Last night on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Tucker ran a video clip of Canadian Prime minister Trudeau giving a speech promoting his initiative to ban handguns in Canada. Tucker introduced the segment by telling viewers to watch the fellow politicians behind him, all nodding in agreement – all of them in their requisite masks.
This was a striking visual catch from Tucker. Talk about a disturbing image. Fifteen “leaders,” all clones, nodding in agreement with their country’s new dictator, showing their superior virtue and compliance with their masks.
This should be the picture and audiotape of where our world is headed. Apparently, Canada is banning the right of Canadians to protect themselves and their families with firearms (and also protect themselves from their own government). This legislation was in response to a school shooting in Texas 2000 miles from Canada. Everyone was for it.
This is the same prime minister who by emergency decree confiscated the money of trucker protestors and took away their business insurance. This is also the same country and government that now wants to “license” journalists.
God bless the Canadian truckers for trying to stand up for liberty and sanity, but the last country I want to visit these days is Canada. Well, maybe Australia.
I can’t help but think that Canada and Australia are templates for the rest of the world.
We were planning to go to Australia before covid, we are not now, and there is no way the replacement will be Canada or New Zealand.
Strangely, so were we, on my wife’s retirement.
We should be in Australia now, on the Gold Coast, with my best mate and his wife.
Instead, we’re enjoying a slightly soggy, but no less enjoyable Spring and early Summer in our large Kent garden.
An Englishman’s home is, indeed, his castle.
Whilst I sympathise with the Canadians, and the Americans on their plight, Biden and Trudeau were the reasons the second amendment was written into the constitution as a condition that “shall not be infringed”.
I’m sorry but, you guys keep bleating about your problem, whilst having the solution to your problem available to you, but do not use it.
If Biden isn’t the most blatant raid on the American constitution anyone could possibly imagine, and the very reason to exercise your constitutional rights to defend the Republic, I really don’t know what is.
If I said the rest of the world is waiting for American people to express their right to freedom, I would be understating the will of the rest of the world by orders of magnitude.
I hate to be crude but, put up or shut up.
Tyrant Trudeau, or Peterloo Trudeau.
Did he say anything about the woman with a gun who prevented a massacre not long after by shooting the assailant?
Isn’t it funny how keeping us safe by disarming citizens never extends as far as disarming the state’s goons?
Bob Moran’s take on Trudeau’s gun control
Yes I saw that awful Trudeau video with the muzzled nodding heads behind him, they’re still doubling down, I assumed it was the Canadian House of Commons? I notice many MPs’ there wear masks in the chamber, seems to about showing left/right political allegiance.
My Trust constantly broadcasts ‘Our senior clinicians in infection control advise that mask wearing is the best protection against infection’ Rowing back from there is going to take some doing. Looking forward to that! Get the masks off patients, it’s abuse.
Meanwhile my trust (Doncaster and Bassetlaw) have released a statement saying masks will be staying and won’t be reviewed again until after the winter !!!
All to say ‘I am Exempt’ and stick to their guns
How about don’t go to Specsavers? It’s clear for all to see that they have been twats throughout.
Agreed. I used to be a customer but will never use them again.
Yep – me too!
Great advice. Yes, always vote with our wallets
Also consider using small independent operations
I was asked to wear a mask for a GP appointment, I said no. The militant receptionist said “I don’t think he will see you without a mask”
I said fine, I will sit in your waiting room without one on and cough all day until he does then.
She gave me daggers but gave in. Please everyone, stand up to the bollocks and make their lives difficult or they will not drop this rubbish
Visited my surgery to collect a prescription yesterday. All 4 or 5 patients in the waiting room mask free as was the receptionist. A couple of the practice GPs came out to call patients in. Only one of them was wearing a mask.
“Hospital Drops Mask Requirement. Will Others Follow?”
Honestly, who the fuck cares?
Just say you are exempt and get on with your life.
These people are life’s losers. They will exist forever in their Troll condition, under their bridge, and there’s not a thing you can do to help them.
Humankind has been infested with the scum since day one yet we have still progressed.
Nothing ever achieved by mankind has been without risk.
Nothing ever achieved by mankind has been without optimism.
Whether they like it or not they will be fucked all their miserable lives because they are pessimists and cowards.
George Bernard Shaw – “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Specsavers comment is interesting. I was roared at earlier this year for daring to wander in, maskless, to collect my contact lenses prescription. I ended up standing outside the door waiting for them. I said, pointedly, “Thank you!!! See, it’s not difficult to be polite!” and sloped off, wondering if some note or other had been added to my profile.
Roar back at them, “I’m exempt!”.
Go to vision express.
I’ve booked an eye test, specifically with vision express because they clearly state masks are not required. Spec savers are full mask-nazi mode best I could tell.
Went to A&E with my wife in the early hours of this Tuesday. Signs everywhere telling people they ‘MUST wear a mask’. Banners outside on the approach to A&E as well. Also, the notices state that ‘fabric’ face coverings are not acceptable.
I didn’t wear one. Wife wore one to speak to reception. Sitting down to wait, I told her not to bother wearing it. She goes in to see triage nurse, and asks if the nurse wants her to put her mask on. Nurse says not to bother – and ‘we might be doing away with all that next month anyway’. A hospital in Wiltshire.
A couple of months ago, I was taken in to A&E at one of those in the same county to do with a minor injury. I didn’t wear any such thing. The receptionists were a bit grumpy, but the triage nurse and the following doctor didn’t insist on it. The latter did wear a traditional surgical one, on account of what she was doing, but that was it. I was only there for a couple of hours overall.
Incidentally, the ‘patches’ that I was given for my injuries were made in China – but then, so was the equipment I’m using right now.
https://expose-news.com/2022/06/02/uk-gov-confirms-covid-vaccination-kills-thousands-after-5-months/
I visit Specsavers. I’ve never worn a muzzle or been challenged.
Went to the local pharmacy yersterday – which is STILL requiring people to queue outside (”only three allowed inside”) and everyone muzzled (except me). Why the h*ll do people go along with it?
I have postponed my annual eye test and asked them to contact me again once the masks have gone. We will see what happens…?