Will you continue to wear your mask when they are optional?

sure for all I know I could have the virus.. but my main argument with you is this

"The difference is that those now happily moving on without masks have generally always been pro-choice, whereas the mask advocates are generally authoritarian and want everyone else to not just respect their choice, but make the same choice as well."

your words.. such bull - totally and utterly

for your info.. I wore my mask in the SM again today - cos it felt v warm in there.. today it wasn't cos I felt that staff expected me too.. and I am v pro choice..

No, you made no suggestion of having the virus. You said you felt odd about not having a mask on and perhaps institutionalised.

As I said, neither of those are anything to do with health or anyone else, and it's equally your choice whether to follow this realisation to its conclusion and either : work through the no doubt temporary feelings of discomfort, or continue to mask up as the easier option.

However, your tone (and that of many other posters) in these responses ("such bull" indeed) validates my point - ultimately you want others to go along so that you feel more comfortable and validated in your choice. What THEY want doesn't matter.

That's the difference here. I don't care whether some continue to wear masks. I DO care about them trying to pressure me or others to do likewise, and because we have already seen how national policy and decision making has been led by such conservative and indeed selfish attitudes, hence why it's taken so long to finally emerge from some of the longest restrictions in Europe if not the world.

Covid is thankfully in the rear view mirror. Yes there were unfortunately casualties (but that was always going to be the case) and there are some who will still need to be careful, but it's now at a stage where the level of threat is even less than the generally low level it's always been. It was never the Black Death or mass killer we thought it could be in early 2020, and that is a good thing and something we should all be thankful for.

So again, it's time to move on and deal with the huge domestic issues facing the country that have been put on hold or allowed to worsen over the past 2 years - from health care to housing - not continue to obsess and fret about something that statistically is of little to no real risk to the vast majority of people that have already put up with so much.

Ciara Kelly on Newstalk put it perfectly recently when she said that the Covid measures were to address health concerns, not the anxieties of some. It was true then, it's definitely true now.

Your imagination running wild, I seldom wore them and I couldn’t give two hoots about anyone still wanting to wear them.

I asked a few people who weren't wear masks why they decided not to wear them... they went in to an anti-mask tirade, didn't think that many people felt so strongly about mask wearing!

I'll only wear a mask now if I'm robbing something where there's CCTV, don't want them splashing me mug all over Crimecall.

What would you do if she were shitless? 😀😀😀

Not even airports, only on flights.

Yeah that's what I'll be doing derp derp derp.

I work in a hospital so I'll be back in there tomorrow, as for the rest of your point not a fúckin clue what your point is and I have no interest in finding out. You have a lovely day though.

A person still wearing a mask is doing so to protect you and not themselves.

Or so they have been conditioned to believe, my local butcher had a man in on Monday with a mask on and he told the butcher that he had 15 pints in the pub on Sunday so the butcher asks him why he was wearing the mask if he was in a packed pub all day Sunday without a mask, he still failed to grasp the logic.