Dr. David Nabarro:

I was thinking of that when that question was asked before. If I am a bus driver, my real risk comes from other people in my bus, particularly if it is crowded, being close to where I am driving and coughing close to me. We know that face protection is quite useful for preventing somebody who has got illness from passing it to others. If people are not responsible and staying at home when they are ill or if they are just in the process of becoming ill with Covid, then it is a decent thing to do to wear a mask to protect the person who is serving you. That is my fundamental point on this. I want to go on saying that again and again because I do not think it is fully understood. I was saying to a colleague the other day that if they are going to open restaurants in France and have people indoors, then the diners ought to be wearing masks to protect the waiters. My friend said, "No way, that will never happen". I said that from a logical point of view of being responsible, it is the people who serve us who we need to protect. I do not think it is a moot point. It is about respect for those who serve us and who often have no choice but to do that work because they are poor and they have suffered huge income losses due to lockdowns and so on. So it is part of being, I think, really responsible.