- the aim in the UK has always been to reduce the burden on the health service and stop it getting overwhelmed
- the link between cases and hospitalisations is well and truly broken, just look at the last month's worth of admissions and deaths
- we delayed lifting restrictions for 4/5 weeks to 19 July to ensure the vaccines also worked on delta, and they do
- by 19 July there will be around 48m adults with one does, and around 36m fully vaccinated

There are a few nutcases who say they're pilots and you paint the whole airline with the same brush. I always find you highly insightful and a voice of reason but this kind of damages your credibility a bit.

All the press are just regurgitating a combination of leaks and guesses as to this afternoon's UK press conference. Except for the Guardian, which has consistently added that travel for the double-jabbed will also be included in the conference.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...rnings-england

Oooh, name calling, how mature!

Well in a sense if they are truly optional there should be no policing to do at all. Those who want to wear them can do, and those who don't won't do.

However, I think if some places continue with their own policies then it may cause the problems you note. Airlines may do simply because the destination may require them even though the UK may not. Organisations like TfL may choose to keep mask wearing in their conditions of carriage too. It's certainly not straight forward. I am unsure what I will do in these cases, but I really am not the kind of person to embark on one man protests and not wear a mask if the airline policy demands it.

Trains do have one potential easier option, a carriage designated for masked pax

Same on a plane. Make F & J for masks, Y for maskless. Let's see how many people have an issue wearing a mask then :)

Can't find the link anymore, but saw an announcement from FR that mask will remain mandatory on all of their flights, regardless of origin or destination.

Already explained elsewhere and above. Deaths is not the only outcome (hospital stress is still ongoing, long covid, etc ...), there are still large portion unvaccinated, and some vaccinated but fragile so relying on a robust population immunity, the aim of the UK might be that, that does means it is a good aim. As for the argument it became a personnal responsability it does not hold water: when society benefits there are plenty of mandatory rules that are not left to personnal responability. Plenty of examples in other fields such as airplane safety.

Fair enough, I admit this particular comment was out of line. I was just annoyed because a few of them were particularly happy about this while at the same time promoting messages asking people to not get the vaccines. And those one do not say they are pilots, they truly are.

:) Well, I don't think I'm being controversial by saying that there's many cretins in the cockpit.

Well, to close the loop and sorry for the OT: this particularly annoys me on a personal level as I do have medium fear of flying and one of the argument to get over it is : pilots are smart and they are professionals, you can leave your live in their hand. I know this is not always true as several incidents showed, but in the UK I was holding them still to that. And when you read several of them arguing vaccines kills and you should not do it, or any other stupidity based on false data, manipulated graph, etc ... then you realize that actually, well, there are some pilots who are idiots as well and it sort of blow all over this particular argument: flying is safe because pilots are smart. This hurts somewhat that I trust my life with their hands of the few rotten apples.

I disagree. Wearing a mask protects other people, and thus it should not become optional to wear one until the infection rate is so low that there is little chance of coming into contact with someone carrying covid. Other governments understand this and it is disappointing - though far from surprising - that the UK/English government doesn't (or pretends not to).

I fully understand that we can't go on like this forever, and I'm as keen as anyone to see an end to the crisis, but the data simply does not support complete abandonment of restrictions.

All understandable. I assume to the extent you think restrictions should continue you would only suggest to August/September which is when everyone will have had the chance to be fully vaccinated?

If we are talking about the UK, then everyone except children will have had the chance. These children are enough to keep covid buzzing around for too long IMHO.

I know it isn't directly BA's fault, but you would have thought they would have had sufficient influence in T5 to put some pressure on the queues at the border. I imagine some push back against mask wearing on the flight when you are getting off the plane and have to stand in hours of line waiting at passport control.

Well this is what I am getting at really. As soon as one target is reached it appears another one is introduced to push things back further. Children are extremely unlikely to have any significant issues at all from covid and almost zero chance of death. It wouldn't make any sense to keep imposing restrictions on that basis. If that's now an issue I am struggling to see when we would ever lift restrictions.

I can understand those who are sounding a note of caution whilst there are still some adults to be vaccinated - albeit all the elderly already have been as well as all vunerable people anyway. There really would be no rationale for keeping domestic restrictions once all the adult population has been offered all doses of the vaccine.