Boris Johnson has been caught not wearing a mask, again, this time on a crowded train.
Why does our PM keep forgetting to wear a mask? 😷
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The prime minister was seen talking to passengers on a packed Manchester to Warrington service on Thursday afternoon.
Boris Johnson has been caught defying his government’s own advice by not wearing a mask in a crowded space...
...just one day after he apologised for not covering his face during a hospital visit.
On Wednesday — reacting to pictures of him greeting hospital staff while unmasked — he had insisted:
‘I wear a mask wherever the rules say I should, and I urge everyone else to do the same.’
He had also been snapped maskless on a train to Glasgow for the #Cop26 climate summit, where — again without a face covering — he sat next to 95-year-old Sir David Attenborough 😷
But he insisted: ‘People will actually have seen me wearing face coverings quite a bit more regularly recently.'
‘I think that’s the responsible thing to do and I’m going to continue to do it.’
As 40,004 new cases and 61 deaths with Covid were recorded yesterday, his actions were compared with past government ‘elitism’.
A new global study has concluded coverings reduce Covid infections by 53% — double the effectiveness of social distancing.
‘It’s rubbish behaviour,’ scientist and independent Sage member Prof Christina Pagel, of UCL, told the Metro newspaper.
She said wearing a mask was ‘a small thing we can each to do to keep other people safer and we should be doing it’.
While masks are no longer a legal requirement in England, train operators still urge passengers to wear them.
Mr Johnson’s government’s guidance states they should be put on ‘in crowded and enclosed areas where you come into contact with people you do not usually meet’.
Senior health experts urged people to wear masks to help reduce the threat of Covid & to stave off future lockdowns.
‘Masks are most effective at preventing somebody else catching the disease from you, and they have some effect to prevent you catching it’ (Sir Patrick Vallance)
Dr Deepti Gurdasani, of Queen Mary University of London, called it ‘seriously shocking’.
‘It highlights a degree of selfishness and lack of regard for others,’ she said.
‘By doing this, they put others — especially those who are most vulnerable — at risk.'
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