Letters: What cycle helmets can tell us about face masks

Masking the truth

Sir: Matthew Parris is right to laud the importance of embracing the scientific method (‘Why should opinion matter more than science?’, 25 July) to determine the efficacy of face masks. However, his proposed experiment contains a significant oversight — the human factor. That is, how the very wearing of a mask (or a conscious decision not to) may itself result in behaviours that alter transmission risk.

Multiple studies into the benefit of wearing a bicycle helmet provide a useful reference. Those forced to wear one by law may do so incorrectly simply to avoid a penalty. Meanwhile they may also indulge in ‘risk compensation’ — more dangerous cycling because they feel safer.

These factors are near impossible to replicate in a laboratory-based study and so the epidemiological ‘experiment’ in which we are all currently engaged may in fact provide insight equally essential to future policy-making.
Paul Bradley
London NW5

The wrong battleground

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Jawad Iqbal

Blue Origin’s all-female space flight was a step backwards for feminism

Sir: Like Mr Hitchens, I am a lifelong blood donor. I share his admiration for the blood donation staff and his outrage at lockdown. I am sorry that he has chosen this particular issue as the battleground for his hatred of masks (‘Seeing red’, 25 July). Contact with staff is not minimal — in fact this is just the kind of face-to-face contact that fatally infected the whistleblowing ophthalmologist in Wuhan. Blood donor workers are a highly trained team, who make close physical contact with hundreds of strangers every week. If one person gets Covid, it jeopardises the whole operation. For me, wearing a mask is a small price to pay to maintain this vital service.
Peter Snowdon
Middleton Quernhow, Ripon

Condemning the ancients

Sir: I enjoyed reading David Butterfield’s article ‘Greco-Roman wrestling’ (18 July). In the Classics department at UCL, we had a department-wide meeting to discuss a ‘response to the Black Lives Matter movement’.