OK, perhaps I shouldn’t have sworn – but people who refuse to wear a mask make me furious

Those of us who are mask compliant have every right to be fed up with people breaking the law, writes Jenny Eclair

‘I genuinely don’t know how to cope with my upset and confusion over those who flout these rules and sneer at the rest of us’ (Getty/iStockphoto)

I did a very stupid thing last week. I tweeted a comment about the selfishness of people choosing not to wear masks on public transport and Twitter came down on my head.

Possibly I wouldn’t have had such a hostile reaction if I hadn’t used the kind of language that immediately loses you the moral high-ground. I used the “C” word twice and suggested that all those who didn’t want to comply with the rules about mask wearing should sit in the same carriage, so as not to piss off the rest of us and make us feel uneasy.

In terms of swearing it was over the top. Prior to the incident that triggered this tweet, I’d only been on one very quiet and well-behaved bus. But an experience on a couple of inner city trains last weekend with yet to be vaccinated family members completely blew my nut.

A significant minority of people travelling on the London Overground service were unmasked – a few wore masks under chins as if making a grudging nod to the rules but no one was wearing a sunflower lanyard indicating medical exemption. I realise that there are a lot of people who can’t wear masks for all sorts of reasons, including both physical and mental health conditions, and I personally know a handful of folk who wear visors instead.

But this was a different vibe. This included a group of five almost absurdly fit looking blokes in their twenties, who leapt onto a train and laughed straight into the face of a young masked woman, who looked visibly upset. Obviously I might be jumping to conclusions and they could have been an asthma support group on a day trip to Westfield shopping centre – and huge apologies if this is the case. I think this pandemic may have turned me into a paranoid suspicious old bag.

No one wants to wear a mask, they’re hideous and like everyone else I was looking forward to restrictions easing on 21 June. But now that’s not going to happen and if refusing to wear a mask on public transport has any bearing on the rise in the Delta variant Covid numbers, then I think those of us who are mask compliant have every right to be fed up with people breaking the law.

If, however, the anti-mask brigade are right and wearing masks is a potentially dangerous act of stupidity, then please can we be told? Many people came onto my Twitter feed to inform me that “face nappies” were responsible for a rise in respiratory illnesses over the last year. Where is this information coming from?

I have a feeling that a great deal of the anger that is starting to bubble up now is a result of constantly woolly government messages. “Wear a mask” (but it doesn’t really matter if you don’t); “masks are mandatory” (but if you choose not to wear one, then that’s fine). Apparently there is no legal requirement to show evidence of exemption, so inevitably it’s a free for all.

We genuinely need to know if mask wearing makes an iota of difference. Are we potentially putting the brakes on freedom partly because of non-mask wearing, or is that a complete red herring?

What I gathered from the fall-out of my ranty tweet, which I wish I’d deleted sooner, was that anti-mask wearing frequently goes hand in hand with those who are also rabidly anti vax, which is surely much more dangerous. Again, it’s important to state here that not all anti maskers are anti vax, but there is a crossover and the sheer numbers and vehemence of these people on my timeline scared me off Twitter for a couple of days. I’d never deactivated my account before but I suddenly felt like I was drowning in poison.

I lasted two days before I reactivated. Twitter for me is mostly a source of light-hearted gossip, book recommendations and pretty pictures of flowers. With one inflammatory tweet, I’d entered a completely parallel Twitter universe and it was terrifying.

As a fully inoculated 61-year-old woman, wearing a mask where and when I’m told feels symbolic of everyone “pulling together”. Maybe it’s because my Dad was in the army that I expect to follow rules. But I genuinely don’t know how to cope with my upset and confusion over those who flout these rules and sneer at the rest of us. Apparently many non-mask wearers describe themselves as “pro-choice” and yet don’t give the rest of us the choice to escape their breath. I have also been told many, many times, that it’s none of my business but surely the delaying of our freedom is all our business?

If in years to come, it transpires that mask wearing was the pandemic equivalent of the propaganda-driven wrought iron donations of the Second World War, then I shall be devastated. In the meantime, my sister has escaped all this hassle by cycling everywhere. If only I wasn’t such a lazy old lump.