Covid-19: Readers’ attitudes to wearing masks in public spaces

On April 4, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the termination of the Covid-19 state of disaster, but some rules, including wearing of masks indoors, will remain in effect for 30 days before the government consults other legislation to guide its response to the pandemic.

Among the general public, the announcement sparked a debate relating to the use of masks, with some advocating the use of masks as a source control to protect others against the reported most common mode of transmission – respiratory droplets, while others called for the end of face covering describing it as suppression.

With Covid-19 still here, as well as the projected fifth wave of the pandemic expected to hit the country soon, the Advertiser asked its readers whether they would continue wearing their masks in public to protect themselves and those around them even if government scraps the regulation.

Here is what people had to say:
Megan Beardsley Forming: Yet, many parts of China are in full lockdown again. Why is that? Yes, I will most definitely keep wearing my mask.
Johan Kritzinger: Nobody wears a mask in the townships, taxis, on the streets.
Sasha Herran: Hell, no! Off with the masks!
Mandy Herran: No, scrap the masks but keep social distancing!
Riaan van Niekerk: Masks will go. They are playing with us, thinking we are stupid and that we don’t see their betrayal towards their own citizens. They sold us out to the NOW (New World Order) for their benefit.
John Reed: I have for the past nine months not made use of a mask in the complex, comprising 24 units, where I live. I have not been vaccinated and still hugged all my family. I am still alive and fit. The government is taking its citizens for a ride.
Hannes Esterhuizen: With this new national health legislation, they are going to introduce laws that force us to wear masks forever.
Danny Asmarelda Swan: Like I commented on the Jacaranda page, it’s the end of disaster declaration, which means it’s over and done. No buts … all the stuff the president mentioned are unconstitutional because it’s in consulting state and not law.
Johan Small: No.
Veronica Schoeman: No.
Bennita du Preez Delport: No.
Tracy Beukes: Look, I must be blonde cause seriously to me nothing changed. What changed exactly because I am totally lost?
Liz Blignaut: No; it’s enslavement!
Jane Morgan: Yes, in shops.
Beverly Fekete: Not a chance!
Rina Slabbert: No, I will not wear a mask.
Johan Delport: I will no longer be wearing a mask when entering a shop. And nobody will stop me. There is no more state of disaster, which means no more mask-wearing!
Ilse Wagner White: Masks must fall. You breath in your own carbon dioxide instead of fresh air with a mask on.
Eileen Mackintosh: I don’t think so.
Anouske Truter: No! Enough masks. They don’t work.
Hennie Malherbe: Definitely, no.
Melissa Diamond: Never wore masks for flu – why now?
Allen Mee: Masks are useless and the vaccine is dangerous. An audit of the deaths will find us in Britain. This was a massively over exaggerated response that has caused catastrophic economic crisis.

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