Stanmore residents are showing a varied response to government COVID-19 guidelines regarding masks being worn in public, highlighting the need for Britons to be educated on the correct way of wearing a mask.
On November 1st, four customers at the Stanmore branch of one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK were seen actively touching their masks, and then touching groceries, which then were handled by cashiers at tills. An employee had her mask on below her nose, potentially spreading the virus to all customers standing in close proximity to her at checkout. Another two adults were spotted without their masks inside the store, and one more using the sleeves of their sweatshirt as the equivalent of a mask.
Stanmore was moved to Tier 2 Restrictions on October 14th as part of the Greater London borough Harrow, but this has failed to convey to all residents the paramount importance of a mask. This was consistent across the entire highstreet, but more concerning in small cafes, where tables were less than 2m apart and customers had masks placed directly down on tables, instead of in plastic bags, infecting the entire area.
“Improper use of masks negates the protection they would normally provide,” says Ash Kumar, a local resident, “Misinformation on masks is prominent - people touch them and don’t sanitise, or reuse them without washing.”
Harrow has a Reproduction-Rate, also known as the R-Rate, between 1.1 and 1.3 currently, and a total of 405 deaths from 2754 cases according to gov.uk. The countries’ coronavirus death count stands at 48,978 out of almost 1.2m cases, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University in the US.
