https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/791/introduction/made

I always wondered what it would be like to read a document that argues black is white is black is white...... 

captcha EAGH

Thanks for the link. Interesting it must be reviewed in 6 months and renewed with a year.  Rather like the lockdown rules in that there is a built in degree of it being a temporary measure.

Not sure if that was a rhetorical question AK, but HoC website states that they are, from 22/07/2020 to 01/09/2020.

It just looks like a complete mess to me - when is a shop not a shop? We have chosen to include our "customer Services" team as they "kind of" fit the definition of a "branch" (post office, bank)  but you could argue not. And people can vist a museum without a face coveringh untill they step into the museum shop! As for enforcement, the Police have the powers but wont enforce them uless there is a public safety risk - so like the poor bus driver in France that was beaten to death when trying to stop someone getting on the bus - no wonder our trade unions are telling members not to stop people. And as for exemptions that are not exemptions, and people dont need proof because no one would lie would they? But dont worry its Health and Safety we have the magic wand!

If the British government are so convinced people will follow the rules - because they are laws i expect all the speed camers to be taken down.

Sorry rant over - TGIF - is it home time yet?

I must stop watching parliament the latest comment being that gloves may be made mandatory.

Why don't they just cut to the chase - we are going back in to lockdown only instead of being at home we will be at work in full homemade PPE.

The way I read these Regulations says that if an e.g. HSE Inspector travels from their office in e.g. London to do an inspection in e.g. Surrey and gets the train to do so, they are in the "course of their employment" and thence exempted from wearing a face covering in an enclosed station or train.

No, I don't think that was the intention of the Secretary of State.

P

If, as Michael Gove insists, we should rely on the good sense of the public, then we are screwed. Yet another unenforceable law as things are. The police don't have the resources to enforce it, the shop staff are extremely wary of tryiing to enforce it (although the big supermarkets do have security staff, so it would seem simple for them to monitor the entrance and refuse admission to anyone not wearing a face covering - from the look of some of them they would relish the power). And, typical for this government, a measure brought in four months late.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/face-coverings-when-to-wear-one-and-how-to-make-your-own

Includes a pdf download "I am exempt from..." along with a print version.

Given some of the ranting video footage in the press over the weekend taken on public transport may be worth passing on to your employees with non-manifest disabilities otherwise the lynch mob will rule in the vaccuum left by authority.

I don't read it as meaning anyone with any disability covered by the Equality Act is exempt.  It says

4.—(1) For the purposes of regulation 3(1), the circumstances in which a person (“P”) has a reasonable excuse include those where—

(a)P cannot put on, wear or remove a face covering—

(i)because of any physical or mental illness or impairment, or disability (within the meaning of section 6 of the Equality Act 2010(1)), or

(ii)without severe distress

meaning that it is only if the disability prevents you wearing it that you don't have to wear it.

I agree they are individual exemptions.  My point is they all contain "P cannot put on, wear or remove a face covering because of ..."

If whatever the thing is doesn't cause you to be unable to put on, wear or remove it, the exemption doesn't apply.

To take the example of dyslexia, it's not the case that "P cannot put on, wear or remove a face covering because of " dyslexia.  There may be some other reason they can't, but dyslexia isn't it, so the dyslexia doesn't exempt them.

I think we need to be careful here as a society.  I have verbal dyspraxia so stuggle with certain words and im hypersensitve so wearing a mask would cause me 'distress'.  No idea if I would be exempt or not under the Vague legislation.  What I see though is mob rule coming into effect by the 'moral majority' and I dont think it will be long before someone is attacked or killed for not wearing a mask.

i'd read the exemption about 'severe distress' as someone who has an absolute wobble at doing it rahter than just not liking it.  Surely as H&S practitioners we should be trying to work out simple ways to avoid us/them passing it on as well as us/them contracting it, and by the way if we can;t do it ourselves then there is some legislation thats a prompt to get our act together.   After all wearing a scarf, neck tube or polo neck jumper can suffice the legislation.  And where do we wear it, regardless of whether we call it a shop or prefer to have another name is rather semantics- how about anywhere that we are likely to be a risk to others or them to us!   Wouldn't it be fair to say taht for the truly vast majority of us that applying common sense does tend to mean legislation doesn't come into it, unless of course we are actively trying to defeat it.  

Would passing out due to hyper ventilating satisfy your moral majority position, and must I prove this each time I need to enter a shop?

The regulation does not require certificated exemption by a medical practitioner.

I have worked out that instead of a fitted face covering the disposable style "visors" whilst still mentally uncomfortable to wear do not result in me being an unconcious heap on the floor.

Wo betide the first crusader who dares try and tell me I am not wearing a face "mask" - the visor fits the regulatory requirement of covering nose and mouth.

Edited by user 27 July 2020 19:09:49(UTC)  | Reason: position

I am sorry if anyone thought i was saying that exemptions should not be made - i understand the need i was simply trying to show what i thought was a badly worded piece of legislation. Sadley Roundtuit i think this will lead to people being abused in the street even when they are genuine - i just hope that we dont see anyone else beated to death like the French bus driver.

Acorns - of course some of the measures are OTT, or perhaps more accurately do not reflect the result of competent assessment of the risks.

Covid hotspots in NE Spain so HMG imposes quarantine to all parts of Spain on the basis that the virus could jump across the sea to island resorts. But doesn't take their risk assessment to its logical conclusion and apply the same standards to Gibraltar (can't do that - they speak English and have the Union as part of their flag, so there would be outrage from Little Englanders) or SW France.

But HMG have only themselves to blame. 

They didn't explain and haven't explained that the idea of NO risk is unattainable.

AND have yet to accept that the health benefits of opening indoor gyms (with suitable precautions) many of which are still closed outweigh the health disbenefits of allowing pubs and restraurants to open (with or without suitable precautions).

Let alone make any real progress in dealing with the adverse impacts that are going to result from shutting large parts of the NHS down as Covid is regulated as a bubble of its own, separated from all other aspects of the world around. So, "avoid public transport" "if possible" even if the outcome is air pollution increasing again as but one example. All fine, up to a point, if you have a car, not if you don't and are effectively shut off from society as a result.