Wearing face masks or coverings on public transport to be mandatory from June 15th

[Butler Henderson]

1 hour ago, Mark Saunders said:

That's what's worse NHS charities, when the NHS should be fully funded by HM Government!

 

All the word charity does is send people on a guilt trip and companies jumping on the bandwagon!

So the £30m+ Capt / Col/ Sir(To Be) Tom Moore raised and the £140,000 Hornby are denoting through the sales of their 66 should be rejected ? The one good thing CV19 has shown is that the NHS needs to be properly funded but at this present moment any charity help is to its benefit.

 

Quite simply until their is a vaccine everyone is at risk and the wearing of a face coverings protects the rest of humanity from you should you have it and not know, as was put quite clearly in this posting on another forum

"I don’t understand why anyone should want to exploit loophole with regard to wearing a mask. Whilst it cannot stop you getting the virus it will reduce the chance of you giving it to someone else. So in one sense It becomes a mark of respect for your fellow man or woman rather than the behaviour of short sighted people who think they are free to do anything they like and damn the consequences for everyone else."

[Gwiwer]

23 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

It's totally unscientific survey time:

 

Meandering along the Sussex Coast for four days, the average observed face covering rates I have observed, about 75% on Monday, down to about 60% on Wednesday, today it was heading down to about 40%.

 

Lots of confusion about where you have to and do not have to wear them (some still under the impression that you have to wear them on the station but not on the train rather than the correct other way around for example) and seemingly different policies for staff as well between operators, everyone on GTR (most drivers not bothering though) but hardly anyone on SWR that I have observed.

 

By this time next week I think the whole thing will have become unintentionally voluntary/advisory outside of Greater London.

This more or less accords with what I see and hear myself.  

 

There is an element of confusion despite the message being fairly unambiguous about "must wear unless exempt".  Confusion exists in the "grey" areas since at one stage everyone was being told face-coverings must be worn upon entering stations.  That did not accord with government statements and has been quietly changed to match the "When travelling" requirement.  

 

Station staff are exempt and employer's directives will perhaps vary.  SWR currently states that "For customer-facing staff face-coverings should be worn when social distancing cannot be maintained unless in a situation where a screen exists."  "Should" is not "must be" and is being interpreted more liberally in some locations than others.  Staff are however an exemption from the legislation unless travelling within the train (either as passenger or "guard" by what ever title).  

 

There have been many wailings and protests on social media about fellow bus passengers not covering up and "Why was my bus driver not wearing a mask?"  Bus drivers are also exempt unless in the passenger saloon to provide assistance; fellow passengers may well be legitimately exempt also.  

 

This is a trust-based requirement and is not policed by Facebook.  Neither is it policed by fellow passengers or staff.  Only the police are authorised to manage this.  As with the original requirement to "Stay Home - Save Lives" there is an element of society who take it upon themselves to point out the apparent wrong-doings of others.  I offer them this piece of advice: "Pull your head in until you're perfect."

[monkeysarefun]

53 minutes ago, Butler Henderson said:

So the £30m+ Capt / Col/ Sir(To Be) Tom Moore raised and the £140,000 Hornby are denoting through the sales of their 66 should be rejected ? The one good thing CV19 has shown is that the NHS needs to be properly funded but at this present moment any charity help is to its benefit.

 

A serious question - the NHS fund-raising thing has me asking -  isn't your NHS a government funded public hospital system similar to ours here ? If so then whats with the charity donations, laudable as they are?

 

I understand that any government funding is never enough and theres always a shortfall (as there is here)  but is it expected and accepted that  individuals donate on top of the tax they pay, or run fund-raisers ,  like its some kind of Save The Wildlife organisation to ensure the NHS still operates? Doesn't it just hide any  true shortfall and give  the government an excuse  to not have to  increase funding?

 

Not trying to raise hackles, just wondering what the go is there, the recent coverage of Captain Tom here has had me wondering what its all about.

 

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Paul.Uni]

https://www.nhscharitiestogether.co.uk/what-we-do/

 

Quote

There are more than 230 NHS charities across the UK and most of them focus on helping our hospitals do more. Collectively these charities give £1 million every day to the NHS so that people can stay well for longer and get better faster. In recent years NHS charities have funded major capital projects, pioneering research and medical equipment at our hospitals, helping patients access the best possible care when they need it most.

 

They also play a key role in mobilising volunteers to support NHS staff, brightening wards and waiting areas with colourful and engaging art and building an important link between our hospitals and our communities. Other NHS charities support mental health trusts, community health trusts and ambulance trusts.

 

These vital funds and services are above and beyond what the NHS alone can provide, touching lives and making a huge difference to millions of people when they are at their most vulnerable.

 

[monkeysarefun]

Thanks, I guess its the attitude that people there have towards the NHS compared to here - where I can imagine what the answer would be if someone came knocking on doors asking for money to help fund the government health department!

[Gibbo675]

8 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

A serious question - the NHS fund-raising thing has me asking -  isn't your NHS a government funded public hospital system similar to ours here ? If so then whats with the charity donations, laudable as they are?

 

I understand that any government funding is never enough and theres always a shortfall (as there is here)  but is it expected and accepted that  individuals donate on top of the tax they pay, or run fund-raisers ,  like its some kind of Save The Wildlife organisation to ensure the NHS still operates? Doesn't it just hide any  true shortfall and give  the government an excuse  to not have to  increase funding?

 

Not trying to raise hackles, just wondering what the go is there, the recent coverage of Captain Tom here has had me wondering what its all about.

 

 

Hi There,

 

At grave risk that the truth is extremely unpopular:

 

The trouble with the NHS in Britain is that it is held in trust status, this is somewhat overlooked when gullible people give money to NHS charities.

The governent, the grantor, bequeathed all of the separated parts of the NHS in the form of trust funds to boards formed of trustees for the profit of its beneficiaries.

 

Here are the questions no one actually asks:

1. Who did the NHS belong to in the first place?
2. Did the government have any business acting as grantor for the NHS by placing it into trust status?
3. For what reason did the government place the NHS into trust?
4. Who are the trustees?
5. Who are the beneficiaries?
6. How much profit do the beneficiaries take?

 

The NHS is funded by government borrowing via the issuance of bonds, the interest on which are paid for by way of taxing earnings etc.

 

If the NHS is underfunded then all the government are required to do is get the Bank of England to magic up more currency so that we may pay the Bank of England some more interest. I shall point out that the government is only too keen to fund foreign wars via this exact same mechanism.

 

As for the wearing of face masks most people I see wearing them have them so badly fitted that they may as well not bother. Better yet I see people take them off to speak to others, funnier yet, to drag upon cigarettes !

 

Gibbo.

 

[boxbrownie]

12 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

That's what's worse NHS charities, when the NHS should be fully funded by HM Government!

 

All the word charity does is send people on a guilt trip and companies jumping on the bandwagon!

Actually the NHS is funded by us, the population......if you think it is still under funded write to your MP asking for a tax rise.

 

The obvious question as to whether the funds are spent correctly is another conversation entirely.

[boxbrownie]

11 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

You try going around and seeing the one use disposable ones for sale at silly money for rubbish, plenty profiteering about!

It’s only profiteering if your dumb enough to buy at that price, plenty of places selling legitimately, I get several emails from suppliers a week at good prices......under a pound each doesn’t sound too to bad does it?

https://www.rapidonline.com/topgene-type-iir-medical-face-mask-box-of-50-65-3583?utm_source=button&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=covid19-essentials-PPE0620&UID=6094276074&utm_campaign=160620-Workplace-safety+CON&utm_medium=email&MID=551397780&utm_source=Consumer

[boxbrownie]

10 hours ago, Butler Henderson said:

So in one sense It becomes a mark of respect for your fellow man or woman rather than the behaviour of short sighted people who think they are free to do anything they like and damn the consequences for everyone else."

Good luck with that one, unfortunately respect for others seems to have gone very much out of fashion.

 

I have also noticed the occasional dirty look when I hold a door open for a lady (I also hold it open for any gender if it’s appropriate and polite), what ever happened to just “being nice”?

[62613]

16 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Actually the NHS is funded by us, the population......if you think it is still under funded write to your MP asking for a tax rise.

 

The obvious question as to whether the funds are spent correctly is another conversation entirely.

But read Gibbo75's post. Taxes don't fund anything; The government pays for things by issuing bonds, which are redeemable at later date ("Shorts", "Mediums" and "Longs"), the interest on which is paid out of tax. UK bond rates are at historic lows, and have been since the crash in 2008, and the various quantitative easing splurges in 2010-2013

[Gibbo675]

7 minutes ago, 62613 said:

But read Gibbo75's post. Taxes don't fund anything; The government pays for things by issuing bonds, which are redeemable at later date ("Shorts", "Mediums" and "Longs"), the interest on which is paid out of tax. UK bond rates are at historic lows, and have been since the crash in 2008, and the various quantitative easing splurges in 2010-2013

At last someone that understands the system !!!

 

Gibbo.

[boxbrownie]

47 minutes ago, 62613 said:

But read Gibbo75's post. Taxes don't fund anything; The government pays for things by issuing bonds, which are redeemable at later date ("Shorts", "Mediums" and "Longs"), the interest on which is paid out of tax. UK bond rates are at historic lows, and have been since the crash in 2008, and the various quantitative easing splurges in 2010-2013

Great so we can all stop paying income and sales taxes then......

 

The semantics of the delivery system does not negate the fact the taxes we pay funds the country.

Edited June 19, 2020 by boxbrownie

[Butler Henderson]

1 hour ago, Gibbo675 said:

The trouble with the NHS in Britain is that it is held in trust status, this is somewhat overlooked when gullible people give money to NHS charities.

The role of NHS charities https://www.nhscharitiestogether.co.uk/what-we-do/

[Jonboy]

7 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

It’s only profiteering if your dumb enough to buy at that price, plenty of places selling legitimately, I get several emails from suppliers a week at good prices......under a pound each doesn’t sound too to bad does it?

https://www.rapidonline.com/topgene-type-iir-medical-face-mask-box-of-50-65-3583?utm_source=button&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=covid19-essentials-PPE0620&UID=6094276074&utm_campaign=160620-Workplace-safety+CON&utm_medium=email&MID=551397780&utm_source=Consumer

 

Dare I point out I bought 100 of this style of masks for £4.58+VAT in October for work to show how bad it really is.....

[The Stationmaster]

8 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi There,

 

At grave risk that the truth is extremely unpopular:

 

The trouble with the NHS in Britain is that it is held in trust status, this is somewhat overlooked when gullible people give money to NHS charities.

The governent, the grantor, bequeathed all of the separated parts of the NHS in the form of trust funds to boards formed of trustees for the profit of its beneficiaries.  Wrong language - the Govt has placed certain NHS assets under the management (not ownership) of Foundation Trusts but the assets are still the property of the NHS - i.e. of you and me

 

Here are the questions no one actually asks:

1. Who did the NHS belong to in the first place?  The Govt in behalf of the people - that has not changed except where any facilities have been transferred to private ownership (which are not to be confused with Foundation Trusts!)
2. Did the government have any business acting as grantor for the NHS by placing it into trust status?  Irrelevant unless the trust runs into deficit, then it has to have a guarantor (not a grantor - that doesn't apply as the assets of the trust are still NHS assets, ie, the Trust does not own those assets, it is charged with managing them).
3. For what reason did the government place the NHS into trust?  Basically to simplify management structures and allow more localised control through the composition of trust members
4. Who are the trustees?  They are trust members, not trustees in the normal sense of that word - some are elected, some may be appointed, some may be volunteers
5. Who are the beneficiaries? The users of each particular trust's hospital(s)  and clinical services etc.   Any surplus from day-to-day work has to be applied to improving the trust's facilities and patient care
6. How much profit do the beneficiaries take?  Silly question really as any surplus on operating costs has to be ploughed back in.  So if you want to identify 'beneficiaries' it is basically the users of the trust's medical services.   In other words if you attend a hospital where the trust has been reinvesting any surplus you are taking advantage of that surplus - so you could in your own words be regarded as taking advantage of the 'profit'.  So preumably how much of it you take depends on the frequency with which you use the trust's medical facilities?

 

The NHS is funded by government out of general taxation, there is no hypothecation which allows us to identify the exact source of the money borrowing via the issuance of bonds, the interest on which are paid for by way of taxing earnings etc.

 

 

 

Gibbo.

 

 

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, Jonboy said:

 

Dare I point out I bought 100 of this style of masks for £4.58+VAT in October for work to show how bad it really is.....

So have they all gone on eBay now? 

[Jonboy]

Hahaha I wish, sadly the warehouse team decided they could make good use of them....

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, Jonboy said:

Hahaha I wish, sadly the warehouse team decided they could make good use of them....

so, they have been selling them on eBay.......

[Dragonfly]

The requirement to wear face masks extended into my office this week too. Made life very difficult as lunch time approached.

[Gibbo675]

3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

Hi Mike,

 

Her Majesty's Government is no longer a de jure entity it is now a corporation and is listed upon the United States Securities and Exchange Commission's website as corporation number 0001452617 at  99 Gresham Street London EC2VC 7NG.

 

This means that the British Government is now de facto in standing and operating as a sub corporation of the United Nations as of 2008 from the information provided by US SEC.

 

So who owns the Government if it is a corporation ?

 

Are you a shareholder, if so where is your share certificate ?

 

Look it up for yourself:

 

https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html

 

https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=her+majesty's+government&owner=exclude&action=getcompany

 

Here are the first forty companies which operate as sub corporations of the corporation of Her Majesty's Government, the list is extremely long as all that is registered at Companies House are within this list:

 

https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&State=X0&owner=exclude&count=40

 

Gibbo.

[SM42]

If registration is required under US law to sell bonds and gilts  in the US then the UK government would have to register.

 

How else could they legally raise income on the international markets (i.e borrow money by selling bonds to be redeemed  at a future date at a given rate of return.)

 

Oh and the government doesn't just ask the Bank of England to print some money. The B of E (which is independent of government so that interest rates can't be manipulated by the government to influence voters just before elections any more) buys UK bonds (normally Uk financial institutions) on the open market therefore releasing equity (cash) into the system in the hope that there will be a trickle down effect.

 

Any way back to masks

 

My understanding is that staff, whilst not legally required to wear masks, are encouraged to do so in customer facing roles, as this will encourage the travelling public to do likewise. The obvious proviso is where this does not compromise safety

 

I can be fairly certain that most of the travelling public will not be aware of the details of the legilsation and will only have the understanding that they must cover their face whilst travelling on public transport (as outlined at the No10 breifing) . Now if the staff don't, then they don't know they don't have to and the "if they're not, I'm not" effect comes into play

 

It's a numbers game. The more who do the better but no-one is expecting 100% compliance now (that genie has I'm afraid, already been released)

 

Andy

 

[Gwiwer]

5 minutes ago, SM42 said:

no-one is expecting 100% compliance now

100% compliance being different to 100% wearing face coverings. 

 

At a rough estimate some 15% of the passengers we see daily might be disabled in a manner which could render wearing of a face-covering uncomfortable or impossible; around 5% might be asthmatic; around 5% rising to 10% on a full school day are children in the exempt age group.  So perhaps 20 - 25% of passengers are potentially exempt anyway.  

 

When Joe or Joanne Public sees a train or bus with only around 3/4 of passengers wearing face-coverings the instinct is to assume the rest are non-compliant.  In a few cases strongly-worded posts are made to Twitter, Facebook and other platforms.  In a few cases images appear on social media and in the commuter press showing identifiable individuals without face coverings.  The implication, rightly or otherwise, again is that these people should be covered up and are breaking the law when in fact that may well not be the case at all.  

 

The distress caused to the exempted person through such an act can be immense.  Imagine being exempt and having your mug-shot, even as part of a crowd but clearly you, on the front page of Metro or the Evening Standard (to use London examples) under a headline about "second wave" or "non-wearers".  

 

There is acknowledgment that wearing face coverings is of little benefit other than some sort of reassurance.  Formal enforcement is patchy.  I see reports from across the country of bus drivers refusing to carry unmasked passengers yet they risk being found in breach of duty of care and possibly having discriminated against a disabled person by so acting.  They do not have the authority to refuse travel.  They do not have to wear face-coverings themselves.  How good would it look for a (correctly) unmasked driver to become embroiled in an argument with an umasked passenger who may have a legitimate exemption.  Not everyone wishes to carry little yellow cards effectively saying "Hey guys I'm disabled" and not everyone is even aware of their existence.  

 

We must trust our fellow human beings on this.  That is all the law allows us to do. And we must not become a nation of vigilantes as seemed to occur in the "first wave" of lockdown when anyone seen outdoors or not known in the area seemed to be fair game for the curtain-twitchers and keyboard-warriors.   

 

As the hashtag has it - be kind.  

[caradoc]

10 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

There is acknowledgment that wearing face coverings is of little benefit other than some sort of reassurance.  

 

Really ? Acknowledgment from whom ? Wearing face coverings on its own will not defeat the virus but reducing its spread will certainly help, especially as with increased economic activity public transport will become busier and social distancing less, or not, achievable.

 

[caradoc]

10 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

In a few cases images appear on social media and in the commuter press showing identifiable individuals without face coverings.  The implication, rightly or otherwise, again is that these people should be covered up and are breaking the law when in fact that may well not be the case at all.  

 

The distress caused to the exempted person through such an act can be immense.  Imagine being exempt and having your mug-shot, even as part of a crowd but clearly you, on the front page of Metro or the Evening Standard (to use London examples) under a headline about "second wave" or "non-wearers".  

 

I do agree that taking photos (obviously without their consent) of fellow passengers without face coverings is bang out of order, given that there are exemptions, but anyone doing that is clearly either thick or ill-informed. I would however expect the editors of news media to be fully aware that there are exemptions and therefore to not publish such pictures.

 

[Pete the Elaner]

8 minutes ago, Lantavian said:

 

42,000 deaths in the UK -- far higher than most other countries -- and you still believe that?

 

 

 

There are a lot more factors than the wearing of face masks, like population density & the way governments smudge official figures, but I'll ignore that & look at the physics of what masks do.

 

The virus exists as small cells which can be carried by exhaled breath.

 

Maybe the following experiment will be a good illustration:

Without a mask, hold a sheet of A4 paper about 1' /30cm in front of you & blow gently. See how it flutters as you breathe?

Now do the same while wearing a mask or other sort of face covering. It doesn't move anywhere near as much does it?.

 

I have read that you should use cotton masks, others being no good. Rubbish. They are not filters; these would make it harder to breathe. They have no special force like a magnet does with ferrous metal.

So how do they work?

The tightness of the fibres creates turbulence, which slows down the exhaled breath massively.

Since is impossible to maintain distance on public transport while trying to fill trains & buses, masks are a way to allow people to get closer 'safely'.