The British Govt are terrified of relaxing lockdown but recommending face masks - because they know that their ineptitude in procuring them means that public demand would absolutely kill the NHS and Social Care supply.

It's another example of changing the guidance to suit the availability of supplies - as highlighted during the Panorama doc the other night.

The numbers of people employed is not important here.
The ability for the country to defend itself should be the only issue.
Selling arms to our allies and possibly precuring supplies from them is acceptable but, producing excess supplies in order to provide employment seems crazy, even if "mass production" helps bring the price down

For our armed forces to be killed with "our" weapons seems absurd, especially if it's preventable.

Although your figure of 130,000 people employed is a hell of a lot of jobs, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a huge figure and if, say, 50,000 of those are making guns to be turned on our own soldiers, that would be madness.

130,000 DIRECTLY employed, so quite a few more will depend on the industry. I'm not arguing the rights and wrongs of arms exports I am just trying, unsuccessfully, to find out how many of those jobs you would sacrifice on your moral altar. BTW I think the numbers employed are VERY important to those people who rely on it for a living.

Appreciate it affects you personally but they said face coverings not masks - distinct difference

When Scotland suggested it they used scarfs, coverings could be made up of various attire could they not

Absolute rubbish.

Nothing to do with following WHO and scientific recommendations, of course? Oh no. Nothing to do with that.

Look, it's always seemed logical to me that although a crappy, ill-fitting mask will do next to nothing to prevent you catching an airborne virus, it could help prevent an infected person spread it by catching some of the infected droplets in their breath/sneezes/coughs. However, many scientific studies and WHO advice on this have been very clear from day one: unless FFP2/3 and professionally fitted, masks are mostly useless and therefore not required outside a medical/care environment. And that's before we even consider the lack of eye protection...

But - fast forward to the last few weeks and WHO advice has been gradually shifting based on a couple of studies in Hong Kong and other places, and if we're hoping to relax the lockdown soon it makes sense we take additional measures alongside social distancing, hand-washing etc.

And although I don't believe it was a factor bearing in mind face mask recommendations were already in place, so what if NHS supplies were prioritised? Do you not accept they are far more important in a medical or care setting? Or that if the government had recommended face masks, 67 million Brits all rushing out to buy all the masks they can find might have had pretty severely detrimental affect on supplies - which were already stretched beyond belief? Or in your brain is everything simply "Bojo and da Tories dun bad".

At the same time, you talk about ineptitude and complain incessantly of how the government/NHS struggled to maintain levels of PPE at times - well, so did you. Are you therefore inept? Shall we all slag you off in similar fashion? Multiply your struggles a million-fold and perhaps you'll get some idea of the challenges faced by NHS procurement, governments worldwide and probably 99% of general hospitals, doctor's surgeries and care homes on the planet. At least when you get hold of PPE you don't have 58,000 locations all demanding it. I think what I'm trying to say is, wind yer neck in: you, the NHS and the government are all doing the very best you can, and doing a grand job, in hugely challenging conditions.



Not that ignoramuses such as WIZEB would understand there's a lockdown in place. The law and doing his bit to help prevent the spread of the pandemic doesn't apply to him apparently.

You are a godsend to Johnson because if they said jump your first response would be how high. What do you know about PPE and social care are you involved in the supplying of one or the running of the other. If not I would suggest you restrict yourself to things you know about and that is gullibility.

So what do we all do for gloves and sanitizers when all of the working people in the world have to share toilets, taps, kettles, fridges doors, cupboard doors, microwave doors, door handles, light switches, stair rails, pubs/restaurant chairs, tables, doctors/dentists/hairdressers waiting rooms and treatment chairs, public transport chairs, handles, buzzers, exchange money to the above. That's gloves and sanitizers for x millions of people for five/six days a week for 12-18 months? Nobody wears one pair of gloves for 8-10 hours a day.

And here we have a prime example: someone who just doesn't have a clue.

Take this in: you do not need gloves, and you do not need sanitisers.

Gloves: are meant for medical/care settings, where (like some other PPE) they are discarded after each individual patient contact to prevent cross infection. If you wear them throughout the day at work or your visit to the supermarket, all you do is accumulate nasties on your gloves and spread them to everything else you touch. You are doing lots of damage and absolutely zero good to anyone, including yourself. Just wash your hands regularly in soap and don't touch your face.

Sanitisers: can kills viruses, but only if they are over 60% alcohol - ideally over 80%. Common soap is generally better at killing viruses. That's why the rush on sanitisers at the start of this was ridiculous, and why the 20 second hand-washing advice was issued - the advice you all mocked, yer know, cos y'all know better.

Prove me wrong. Go on.