Letters / Parallel universe?

Masks. We’ve been here before, and I daresay we’ll be here again. Almost no one is wearing face coverings in supermarkets at all now, and for the life of me I can’t see why.

My understanding is that we currently have more people walking around with Covid than we’ve ever seen. Yet going into Tesco is like entering a parallel universe where Covid doesn’t exist, and never has done.

Have you seen that film Yesterday? It feels like that, only in this instance I’ve woken up in a world where no one remembers the deadly virus that is actually right in their midst. If I could think of a way of making a bit of money out of the collective amnesia it might not be quite so bad.

I don’t know if this is some kind of macho thing with people, or what. To me, a man in his 60s, it just seems like the most basic, basic common sense that even now, going on three years, you’d want to avoid picking up this disease, even if you’ve had it before.

I mean, even if your fear has totally gone now, why on earth would you not be able to tolerate putting a bit of material over your nose and mouth for 20 minutes, twice a week, if you could avoid at least seven days feeling absolutely terrible, potentially losing pay, and having to isolate yourself to avoid passing it on, and incurring the huge disruption to your life that it entails?

Even more so because by wearing a mask you’d drastically reduce the possibility of causing someone else to feel like that, maybe even someone you care deeply about, even if you don’t care about yourself. I’ve tried to come up with a logical explanation, but I’ve failed dismally. Maybe it’s just me.

The bad news is that acknowledged experts in the field agree that this is going to be a problem for all of us for the rest of most of our lives. It’s going nowhere.

It’s a huge pain, particularly for those of us towards the back end, as it is going to mean plans change, aspirations will have to be reined in, and it’s all a bit vexing. But life is like that sometimes. Containment during outbreaks will mean more spells where we don’t have to worry as much. We’re in a containment stage now.

Rob Jones
Bressay