(30 Nov 2021, 12:21 pm)streetdeckfan wrote And that should have always been the plan. People are going to catch COVID, that's just a fact. There's no stopping it, even New Zealand have admitted that now. You might as well let people get it over the summer when there is already less pressure on the NHS, with the hope being that natural immunity would give them extra protection throughout the winter. (on top of the protection already given by the vaccines)

After all, the reason for the lockdown was to 'protect the NHS'!

I'd personally much rather have a higher, but steady rate throughout the year than have massive unsustainable peaks over winter like we're seeing with other European countries.

But to answer your question, i.e. "if masks were as great as they're made out to be then why are all the countries that mandate them having massive surges yet we're not"

We haven't had a 'surge' because we've remained consistently high, and out of cycle with every other country. That may even answer your own question regarding the effectiveness of mandatory face coverings, whereby consistently high case rates haven't been seen where they are mandated.