So we've basically gone from 'you stupid idiot, you shouldn't wear a mask, you are taking them from health care workers!' to
'why are you not wearing a mask?' (though, to be fair, here and then they said the mask should be worn by who are ill, the difference now is that there appears to be an acknowledgment that people don't always know when they are ill. Those people who are 'individuals not exhibiting symptoms')
The Czech Republic and neighbouring Slovakia are, I think, the only two countries in Europe to mandate wearing masks in public, though others will doubtless follow their example before long.
I'm in the UK, and it was two of
eku zhong's posts in this thread -- one about how wearing masks stops you touching your face, and one in late February about the precautions she and Yure are having to take -- that made me realise what was coming here in the UK, so at that point I started preparing and, among other things, bought some disposable paper masks (non-sterile, the sort they use in some nail bars, so not much use in medical environments) and also some washable dust masks for cyclists, along with disposable gloves and so on.
Because of my age and because of the state of my throat, I am not going to risk catching covid-19, no matter what it takes, and I've done self-isolation before, when I was on immunosuppressive drugs for the chemotherapy, so this ain't my first rodeo, as I think they say, and I'm leaving as little to possible to chance.
