Some people still believe pandemic a hoax, refuse to wear masks

Unbelievable though it sounds, some people are still refusing to wear masks on the grounds that Covid-19 is all a big hoax.

It’s happening on flights around the world.

Last week, a viral video recorded a man being slapped by his wife after refusing to wear a mask on a packed Manchester, UK, to the Canary Islands, Spain, flight.

In the video the man yells at his masked fellow passengers, “You’re all being lied to! The longer you wear them masks, the longer this goes on. Get them off and fight back!” His wife tries to calm him and get him to sit down. He shouts at her, “Shut up you f**ing imbecile,” and she is heard slapping him. Chaos breaks out as the man tries to retaliate and other passengers get up to intervene.

The airline confirmed that police attended the flight due to a passenger “behaving disruptively onboard and refusing to wear a face mask”.

It’s one of many incidents to have sparked tense scenes on a flight since the face mask rule was one of several anti Covid-19 measures introduced by most airlines.

A woman was taken off a Belfast, Northern Ireland to Edinburgh, Scotland flight on October 18 because she refused to cover her face. She was filmed coughing at other passengers and screaming abuse as crew members held her down before staff removed her from the plane.

In another incident, mask-protesters were pictured celebrating after they managed to board a flight to London from Berlin without masks by claiming they were medically exempt.

Back on the ground, things can get volatile too.

Ireland has entered a new six-week lockdown, and a man in a Tesco supermarket in Drogheda, Leinster, smashed up dozens of bottles of booze after he was asked to wear a mask like everyone else in the store. Video shows the enraged man hurling bottles from the shelves as other customers try to stop him.

A bystander said, “It was a very sad day watching all that whiskey and wine go down the drain.” In court the judge ordered psychiatric tests for him.