As someone who never been there (or in China for that matter), is "face mask" a synonym for something or you mean literally a face mask? Don't think it's mandatory to wear face masks, just that a lot of people do it, right?
If someone knows better, please correct me
But it doesn't seem like it would be too different from what always happens in Chinese New Year in Beijing. All the shopkeepers aren't from Beijing originally, so they close shop for two weeks and go back to their hometown. There's pretty much no restaurants open, except maybe chains. And people are shooting off fireworks all day, so the air is just as polluted as always (generally well above the level of an airport smoking lounge in the winter), so you want to be wearing an N95 mask anyway. (Generally if you can't see the mountains around Beijing, you should consider wearing an N95 mask)
Why is that?
Are the native Beijingers to rich and fancy to run a shop?
Consider that Beijing has 21 million residents but less than 14 million hukou holders, there is a lot of migrant labor to go around.
It’s not a new idea it is one that I think most western countries would say, “we tried it and it failed.”
For me it brings to mind racism, slavery, a good excuse for genocide.
In the west the idea of hukou isn’t “foreign” it is too familiar and ugly. Like an alcoholic father you have left behind.
It does not bother me in any way that the government in China gets to decide whether and where people can travel or work or live.
I'm glad they don't do it where I live, but I am sure the average Chinese citizen is glad they don't have to suffer many indignities and strange quirks of western life.
I cannot, for instance, let my child play with a water gun at the public park for fear he will be shot and killed by a police officer. I do not need to pretend that's unquestionably good. It is certainly not the way I would prefer to live. It is just a fact of life.
Sounds like an opportunity for someone to open some bagel shops.
[0] https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/I9oFk8woGSbkQRIPXckL...
Don't recall downtown, or even other areas of the plateau as having such popular bagel shops.
1) Beigels don't have as much variety here, and I've only found them on Brick Lane or Chapel Market. Presumably there are some more places in Tottenham.
2) Chinese restaurants are not open on Christmas.
You mean to ask if this is slang for something else.
Which, in this case, it is not. It's a mask over your face which is extremely common in China.
Here's the definition from Merriam Webster: "one of two or more words or expressions of the same language that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses."
But, even more importantly, words can have nuances! Here's a nuance: "a word or phrase that by association is held to embody something (such as a concept or quality)."
In both cases, the notion of identical meaning is absent. It would also completely vitiate its common usage. Synonym is best thought as simply a similarity in meaning.
https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/12232189775700787...
Even if it is fake, @globaltimesnews is run by the Communist party, so either they actually are sending drones out to tell you to put on a mask, or they want you to think they're sending drones out to tell you to put on a mask.
The same thing also happens in other cities when there's a big central government visit (e.g. Xi Jinping) planned.
No one will shoot you if you go out without a face mask. However, people will think you are being rude, you might get a lot of stink eye.
Surgical masks protect other people from your coughing / breathing -- they do nothing for you.
N95 masks are notoriously difficult to actually fit correctly. A mask with a filter needs to be completely sealed around your face. You should not be able to get any airflow in from the sides. The elastic is usually too weak, the masks themselves are too lightweight, and they rarely have anything but paper touching your face, so you're not going to be able to get any sort of seal with them.
The only mask that has any hope of protecting the wearer against inhaling airborne particles is a 3M-style cartridge respirator that's fitted properly. The mask should be heavy, the part around your face should be silicone or rubber, and you should be sweating enough to lubricate the mask so that it acts like a suction cup around your face.
1. Not infect others during the period while they feel fine but are actually spreading the virus
2. As a more effective means of preventing spread via coughing and sneezing.
Let's be realistic here -- when the public is in a panic, their behavior gets worse, not better.
But the mandate to wear masks in crowded public places is to protect others from the wearer. Note there have been few if any reported cases of transmission on long flights from China. This may have something to do with mask wearing by carriers of the disease.
agree people should not deceive themselves, however.
> We performed a systematic review of both clinical and surrogate exposure data comparing N95 respirators and surgical masks for the prevention of transmissible acute respiratory infections.
That it didn't find a difference between N95 and plain surgical masks isn't surprising:
> Participants in clinical studies were health care workers in a health care setting. We defined health care worker as any worker in a health care setting who might be exposed to a patient with an acute respiratory infection. [...] Acute respiratory infections may have been acquired during the study from community exposures rather than nosocomial exposure.
It's not obvious (and wasn't discussed) that such a broad definition of 'health care workers' identifies people who are exposed to categorically more respiratory infections than, say, elementary school teachers. Indeed, one of the studies was actually halted due to the H1N1 outbreak in 2009.
So... of the people in the study who did get sick, we don't know how many of them caught it from their kids at home or on the bus to work when they weren't wearing .
Interestingly, one of the two randomized studies they looked at, having by far with the largest number of participants (1669), concludes:
> Continuous use of N95 respirators was more efficacious against CRI than intermittent use of N95 or medical masks.
(The other study with 1441 participants concludes that N95 respirators are more effective in preventing multiple simultaneous infections.)
A regular surgical face mask doesn't protect.
A more specialized mask, known as an N95 respirator, can protect against the new coronavirus, also called 2019-nCoV. The respirator is thicker than a surgical mask
Then you have P95, P99 and P100 that look exactly the same but also work against oil-based aerosols (e.g. if you're spraying paint). These are frequently what you get from a hardware store.
Now all these are actually filtration efficiency classes. So you can get a P100 mask that looks like this [1] or one that looks like this [2]. Obviously [2] gives better protection, even though they are the same class.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/3M-P100-Disposable-Particulate-Respir...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/3M-Respirator-Reusable-Particulate-Re...
For the big full face or half face respirators, you can also get rectangular multi-gas filters (e.g. for organic vapors, acid gases etc) that you can also get pink rectangular aerosol filters for.
Edit: forgot to mention that all these are US NIOSH class numbers. In Europe you'll find mostly-equivalent ratings to P95/P99/P100 specified as P1/P2/P3 (or FFP1 etc.).
Edit: For the unfamiliar N95 is a NIOSH standard that dictates the percentage of particulates that are filtered and if the filter is rated for environments with presence of oil. The letter which can be N, R, or P tells you if the filter is good in the presence of oil. N=Not Oil Rated, R=Oil Resistant, P=Oil Proof. The number following the letter tells you the percentage of particulates filtered and typically come in 95, 99, or 100. Both surgical style masks and respirators can be N95 rated.