Ministers have been accused of giving mixed messages about where people should continue to wear masks, as the government prepares to end their compulsory use in most places across England. Boris Johnson is expected to announce in a Downing Street press conference at 5pm that from 19 July face coverings will no longer be legally mandated but optional instead, as part of a wider pivot towards dropping legal restrictions and telling people to learn to live with Covid. Masks are currently required to be worn in shops, places of worship, on public transport and when moving around enclosed indoor spaces such as hospitality venues. But as part of Johnson’s attempt to return life as close to normal as possible, they are expected to be required only in health and care settings. Guidance will also be issued about when people might choose to wear a mask.
Some politicians seem split on whether and where they will continue to wear face coverings. The mandate was introduced last summer in an attempt to stop the aerosol transmission of Covid-19 in places where people could not keep a 2-metre distance. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said at the end of June that he would stop wearing a mask “as soon as possible” and was looking forward to life getting “back to normal”. Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, said the same when speaking to Sky News on Sunday. “I don’t particularly want to wear a mask, I don’t think a lot of people enjoy doing it,” he said. “These will be matters of personal choice. Some members of society will want to do so for perfectly legitimate reasons. But it will be a different period where we as private citizens makes these judgments, rather than the government telling you what to do.” Helen Whately, the care minister, did not go as far, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she was “looking forward to not having to wear a face mask so much as I have been” and that they had downsides for people who relied on lipreading. “I don’t know that I’ll be ditching it entirely,” she said, adding: “There may be times when it is appropriate to wear if I’m somewhere it’s crowded,” such as on a crowded commuter train. She confirmed that face masks would still be required in care homes and healthcare settings, but that in the rest of society it would be up to people’s “common sense”.
Huw Merriman, a Tory MP and chair of the Commons transport select committee, said if the government advised people to wear face coverings on public transport instead of forcing them to, that would be a “cop out”. He said it would be very confusing for passengers and mixed-messaging. The split in ministers’ personal decisions prompted a government adviser to accuse the government of sending mixed messages. Stephen Reicher, a professor at the University of St Andrews who is a member of the government subcommittee on behavioural science, said masks were a “crucial mitigation” in crowded, badly ventilated spaces, and he hit out at the “very confused messaging”.
He said: “My fear is that when the government says ‘you take your responsibility seriously’, what they’re saying is actually ‘we’re not going to give you that support and we’re not going to take our responsibilities seriously’.” The move also appears to have worried some health professionals. Dr Nikki Kanani, the medical director of primary care for NHS England, told Times Radio: “One of the things that we know is masks work. If there is advice to keep wearing masks, I know I will and I’ll be encouraging others to do so as well.” Prof Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, told the BBC on Sunday he would wait to see what the announcement on masks was, but said: “Those habits to reduce infection are a good thing.”