IT will be compulsory to wear a face masks in shops and on public transport from tomorrow morning (Tuesday).

The return of mandatory face masks follows a rise in covid numbers and the Omicron variant.

Worcester News has been speaking to the city's traders to find out their thoughts on the new rules and the return of the mask.

Gill Barnett, manager of Cookmate in central Worcester, has had positive experiences with staff and customers regarding masks.

“We always carried on wearing them and we’ve found that people are quite happy to put them on.

"We have been offering masks to our customers and then people are more than happy to wear them.”

She also said that “a lot of our customers wear them anyway, so our experiences have been very positive.”

Gill found that most of the time when asked to wear a mask or leave the shop, people were happy to comply and put a mask on.

Linda Hutton, who works at the Body Shop in Worcester, was very much in favour of the new law being introduced.

“I wish masks had never stopped. It’s concerning being faced with a sea of people, sometimes 1,000 per day.”

Her colleague Louise Symonds shares her opinion. She said: “It’s about common sense really. Some people stopped wearing them even when cases go up.”

They agreed that it is worrying to work in retail and come face to face with so many people each day without the protections of masks.

Therefore, they are very happy with the new law.

Angie Aston was also pleased to have compulsory mask wearing be reintroduced.

However, she questioned “why not bring the rule in from midnight the day it was announced?”

Angie feels that “it makes it difficult to work, especially in the cold, but we have to do what we have to do”.

Jane Jones, who also works at Flowers of Worcester, predicts “lots of people won’t bother and will just ignore it. We’ve got to do it though to stop the spread, we should have kept it from the beginning.”