HAVING worked with plaster and asbestos panels in my working life, I have to give credit to Echo letter contributor Jeff Williams who has many times spoken up on the issue of masks, and as far back as March: “Mask respirators with cartridges, rated FFP3, will provide virus protection”.

And now finally, six whole months since the epidemic broke, the UK government finally comes round to requiring face covering when we are in shops. But still notably “face coverings”.

Still not proper FF2 or FF3 masks that will filter out the virus. Two-way protection, breathing out, and in.

Many will say the problem is the country does not have FF3 mask supplies.

That is quite right but that is no grounds not to tell the public the truth. We should have these masks and the government should be moving heaven and earth to procure them.

Ready today's other letters

We are in the end the very last industrial country to finally grasp masks have to be worn. The whole of Asia wore them from day one. New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Austria, Canada, and other countries such as Scotland, quickly followed.

Even deeply muddled USA in many states mandated masks in public as far back as April.

But the UK was last in line, with the explanation “the science has changed”. That is not the truth.

The science of filtering has not changed a grain. How could it change? Masks filter fine dust and virus. That is what they are designed for. That’s what it says on the tin.

All that has changed is that the government has coined the phrase “face coverings” as the third rate substitute for proper N95 FF3 respirator masks. And so the propaganda, not science, rolls on.

MICHAEL ANDERSON

West Cliff Road, Bournemouth