So fucking what? Australia isnt trying to stop people from getting Covid. This isn't 2020 anymore. The same logic you just applied can be equally applied to every work place, household, wedding, party, restaurant etc... All the stuff we can do anyway. Australia has had well over 5 million cases all within the space of a 3-4 month period. They arent trying to control it or contact trace it anymore

You are also assuming face masks are effective when they arent. Those 5 million cases occurred exclusively under face mask law, and that isnt counting the cases that were undiagnosed. I read an article about standard tokenistic epidemiologist saying Australia should stockpile over 200 million masks so we can all have 10 each. An investment worth over 1 billion dollars just so we can have 1 or 2 months worth of coverage for the smallest amount of the spread during a 5-10 year pandemic. Thats how ridiculous it is

The definition of a at risk contact was changed to 4 hours of contact in an indoor setting. This represents the highest amount of risk and by knocking this over the head we can have "some" meaningful impact on numbers while setting up a life balance. Equally contact tracing is gone, as is quarantine. But for some strange reason it is a criminal offence to jump on a bus for 15 minutes without wearing a mask. This is nothing more than self interest and you know it

Australia needs a strategy in place to keep the virus out of hospitals and out of aged care. These settings require a Covid zero approach for the next 5 to years, if not for life. Nothing else matters

If people want to wear a mask on the bus then they can. There is no law stopping that. But for self interested response teams to use their power to make it a criminal offence not to do so is ridiculous. There should be no process in place that allows this to happen on the scale it has for the length of time it has been able to go on

Absolutely this is a big issue

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/hated-covid-isolation-rules-could-be-about-to-be-scrapped-in-australia/ar-AAW9DUU

ARA chief executive Paul Zahra said the government needed to better consider Australia's high vaccination rate when giving health orders.

'We're one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, and into the third year of this pandemic, yet we're continuing to let this virus control our lives with overzealous Covid rules and restrictions which are out of step with many global economies,' he said

Response

Herp de derp. Public transport is a high risk setting and we can stop 0.00001% of cases by having mask laws in place

If my job meant I was sitting directly next to 6 strangers twice a day, so close that they actually touched me, I'd have no problem wearing a mask. Id want to with the filthy farkers getting around.

FFs, I never wear a mask anywhere and haven't for ages but it seems like a common sense health practice on PT. You literally can have ten people standing in a space for two people. 

I always love the emotive language "Letting it control our lives" as if we don't have a bunch of rules in our lives already that are there to protect ourselves and others. It's part of living in a society.

Its about whether it the law is necessary, proportionate and consistent. Thats part of living in a society

Every single law serves a point. They arent imposed for the hell of it. Law takes time, cost and resources

Everything Covid has to tie back to the initial directive and agreed framework. This crap health officials could get away with in 2020 (shutting down an entire state because there is a single case in isolation and there may have been an outbreak) is no longer in the spirit of the current direction

Not wanting to make two posts (so I'll do it in one) but its kinda what TSF is saying. If somebody wants to wear a mask, and it makes them feel safe, there is nothing stopping them. They can. Its their choice. We all have the choice to get vaccinated. We all have the choice to enter crowded areas or not. We all have the choice to socialise or not. This comes down to self management

For those who are vulnerable and are just as likely to die despite being triple vaccinated we need to make sure their homes, and the facilities they must access (like hospital systems) are safe. Face masks on buses and in crowded supermarkets doesnt make that safe. Especially when we know for a fact only the highest grade masks when worn properly offer some protection

This is just a political push and pull by health officials to see what they can get away with while they are still relevant, tied to teething issues from a society that has fear of opening up as it transitions from hysterical to sensible. To think South Australia actually sat down, reviewed the laws, looked at all the data, spoke to all involved, and walked away concluding that people who use a bus without wearing a mask need a criminal sanction in fear hospital systems will be overrun

If there isnt significant and substantial real world data to prove that it will make a meaningful impact under the current circumstances then it shouldn't be a law, regardless of want or secondary benefits

There are plenty of laws that are far more disruptive than wearing a fricken mask on public transport. Please continue to go off about it though. Don't let me stop you.

Give me an example of a more disruptive law that is not vindicated

And by bus, you also mean retail workers, primary schools, and at all times indoors during self declared outbreaks / winter. The face mask law hysteria is ground work for rolling these laws in and out at the click of a button

And yes, I will continue to go on and on about it (619 consecutive days in Victoria BTW). This is a relevant topic for discussing all things Covid and the only thing we get nowadays is hysterical epidemiologists predicting an apocalypse so health officials can justify face mask laws

Edit: Just read that WA are removing all gathering & venue caps and bringing their definition of a close contact in line with the rest of Australia. But nothing about removing face mask laws. No self interest here though. Definitely not

How is putting on a mask on PT disruptive? It’s for 20 minutes and is common sense. It’s not hard 

This is a national uniform law for all forms of public transport. it is illegal for anybody over the age of 12 (with few exceptions) to enter any form of public transport without a mask until health officials deem this self declared "high risk facility" to be safe again

This means you cant take public transport on impulse. If you drink on impulse and decide to do the right thing and take a taxi home, you cant unless you have a mask. Same as if you break down or are stuck. It also means that 15-20 million Australians need to stockpile masks for a single purpose

Oh wait. People can just crumple them up and fold them into their purse or wallet, slap them on during the journey, and then take them off. Just like the experts recommend can stop this highly infectious disease

Cars come with seatbelts and airbags and they are regulated to a standard. This is impractical self management on a national scale with no standard and no sense. Just like when Victoria decided to force primary school kids to get educated with a mask because kids could kills their grand parents. Again - where is the data to prove vulnerable people catch it exclusively from primary school kids, who catch it exclusively in the classroom, that can be stopped exclusively with masks

Stop trying to find the logic in this. There is more logic in John Smith's posts. Face masks are just a selfish power grab

Not wanting to make this already long post longer so you can stop reading if you havent already, but the reason why contact tracing, quarantine, borders etc have ended is because they were specific pandemic laws for a specific purpose. Once the thresholds were met they were no longer required

Face masks arent tied to the pandemic. They arent tied to vaccination rates or hospital rates. There is no end date. Health officials simply declare buses as a high risk facility and we are stuck with them. Compare this to America where they have removed mask laws in low to medium places of transmission and have set a May end date. If you were to ask resposne teams in Australia when face masks on transport will end you'll get an ambiguous non committal reply about how it wouldn't be smart to remove all laws at once and they'll go when the time is right

It aint going anywhere and ultimately, like you, people will just ignore it. Half imposed, half followed

Oh, and not wanting to double post but this was a good ol' laugh

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/wa-eases-covid-19-rules-but-masks-remain/ar-AAWaqdp


The public failed by a bunch of clairvoyants with Excel spreadsheets once again. When are we going to move from a predictive model to a reactive model given the failure rate and amount of needless loss?

Not sure where you work but in my work place, where we eat, where go for a drink - I see no masks, no restrictions - nada.

Everybody has moved on.

There's literally nothing different in my day to pre-covid. Only difference now is sick people stay home and don't make the rest of us ill. 

I know things are a bit different in Vic but the only time I've worn a mask in the past 2 months is when lining up for a COVID test.

Considering I had COVID I think that was fair enough.

I'm not posting for me. This is a general discussion and I dont see myself at the centre of the world
WA - all places indoors
Victoria - Hospitality workers, primary school (scheduled to be dropped), public transport, health and aged care
Rest of Australia - Public transport, health and aged care and whatever other things they want to add to it

Victoria also still have the vaccinated economy in place and a few other restrictions. I read somewhere that work isnt at 100% capacity in some sectors either

This doesnt end when you personally stop noticing the rules

The rest of Australia doesn't give a fuck - don't worry about them they're fine.

Cool. So every worker in hospitality in Victoria, every primary school kid and parent, the unvaccinated, employers managing WFH inefficiencies, every public transport user, bus drivers that have to wear masks for longer than doctors who work with Covid patients - they dont care and are happy to just get on with things

I'm not surprised that somebody so open to a one sized fits all approaches would believe in a one attitude fits all ideology

Your approach to the pandemic was to only care about what impacted you, and to only follow the rules you care about following. I dont agree with that. Neither do I agree with health officials using a national emergency to push their own interests when response teams have decided to blindly follow their advice

We're different

We've had to wear them in shops and restaurants. As of tomorrow, it'll all be dropped here too. Completely fine with it but it just never was that big a deal to me or anyone I know. I think other things have to be going on in your life to care so much about it.

Public transport - at least in NSW has for over the last 15 years been built on crush capacity during peak times. You mentioned 20 minutes on public transport, with the inefficiencies of public transport in NSW, the restricted services because of people being sick with covid has many people spend 3-4 hours in these 'crush conditions'. They have had two years to look at this and come up with ways to alleviate the problem. Their answer - there is no problem - everyone back to work to support CBD coffee shops and cafes. Never mind that decentraliztion of the workforce actually improved efficiency and supported business that don't happen to be in the CBD of Sydeny

It was estimated 80% of the virus came from household / shared facilities contact and given the mini relapse from opening up, and people going back to work, its obvious a large chunk of it comes from work places also. Lets say 5% of the virus is spread through stranger congestion. Where is the point in only having laws to stop this 5% - particularly given the stage we have reached (living with it)? And thats assuming average Joe slapping on a crumpled up piece of cloth can actually stop an infection. I would argue somewhere between zero and nothing

This thread isnt flooded with data, modelling, blogs, expert opinion like it was when John Smith was being destroyed. When somebody doesn't have an argument the tactic is to destroy them with simple fact. When somebody does have an argument the tactic is to discredit or attack the person

Trying to prove public transport is the biggest risk factor is like trying to prove the Earth is flat. It simply isn't. Not by any stretch

In 2020 when we knew nothing about how this virus worked, let alone how it would transmit, managing public congested places seemed about right. Now that we have the data, knowledge, vaccines, and progress we either use that to form a meaningful solution (the basic philosophy behind what you were saying) or we continue to make groups suffer due to ignorance / self interest

Self interest has no place in disaster management. Every data point and every thing communicated is critical. Imagine if there is a fire and you evacuate people the long way just so they can tip a few coins in your fundraiser jar. A lot of countries around the world have end dates around restrictions, a plan, and are looking at moving past this. Response teams are seeing how much they can salvage and looking to introduce life time health management changes

There isnt the slightest bit of sense and absolutely nothing to be gained by making every form of public transport indiscriminately illegal without a face mask given the objective is to live with the virus

There shouldnt be a single law or restriction in place without full transparency, data, and real science to demonstrate why it is critical to stop hospital systems from being overrun. Response teams need to be accountable for every law they roll out and need to demonstrate its purpose for every day it is in existence. Anybody who disagrees is their problem not mine

I think you're confusing mask efficacy is being limited to prevention of infection (which they do by about 50%: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-0683020)

But Masks also reduce the SEVERITY of the infection.

Ever wondered why young double-vaxxed people get infected and die?.  Whereas older people with pre-existing conditions don't.  It comes down to the initial viral load and the mode of transmission.

Take multiple big gulps of infected aerosols straight down to your lungs from a mouth breather one foot away from you for half an hour on your PT ride and chances you will not only get infected you will get very sick, triple vaxxed or not.

I have to wear an N95 mask at work. all day. Everyone that walks in to my room has a choice: put one on or fuck off. ( yeah they pull human rights discrimination card, but we have prepared speeches to handle that)

I've had three of my staff infected: 2 out socializing with no masks and the other one at work because she's an idiot who pulls her mask down to talk to clients one foot away from her.  All triple vaxxed, all got sick as dogs for 3 weeks and it fucked the business up every time because we can't get replacements as there are no available qualified people to hire.

You've said earlier something along the lines:"Well that's your job and if I don't like I should get another one". Here is the problem with that line of thinking:  there will be fewer workers able to serve you when you want them.  Maybe even in a cancer treatment ward.

Sounds like someone who is now glad to be vaccinated. 

I was never anti-vaccination.  What I objected to, and still do, is a lack of government transparency about the risks of the virus versus the risks of the vaccines in a given individual.  How can anyone make an informed medical decision without knowing those risks?

What's really interesting is that masks reduce the risks of getting infected by 50%, hand washing by 50% and physical distancing by about 25%, not to mention reducing severe disease as well.

On the flip side, the risks of doing these things are zero.  Quite effective, simple, affordable, low risk measures we can all take.  But once the vaccines were pad for- apart from masks- that all went out the window.

Explain to me how wearing a mask on public transport, and only public transport, reduces the severity of the infection

You are arguing about face masks efficiency independent of the circumstances

Lets review:
. Borders - gone
. Internationals - no longer have to be vaccinated
. Private gatherings - uncapped
. Events - uncapped
. Singing and dancing - why not
. Work places - open slather
. Contact tracing and isolation - we don't need that
. Public transport - absolutely no fucking way. If you dont wear a mask you are a health risk. Public transport is the single biggest risk of the pandemic and it is simply too dangerous for anybody Australia wide under any circumstances to use any form of public transport without slapping something over their mouth and nostrils. It is illegal and comes with a fine, plus the resources to enforce it. Independently reviewed over the last few days and unanimously concluded that it is just too damn dangerous

If you want to sign your name to that, it is your problem, not mine. Health officials need to provide the data and complete transparency on why absolutely everything is now balanced in terms of living with the virus but using public transport without a mask is just outright forbidden with no end date in sight

I know nobody on here has been able to

Only when they are being worn (point 1) properly (point 2) by both people (point 3) and meet a high grade (point 4)

If you have a look at every Covid transmission how many instances would those 4 factors have been true?

Nobody has been able to eliminate Covid, or even control it to some meaningful level with face masks where as Australia was able to at the start of the pandemic with border control, social distancing and awareness

Face masks is nothing more than a "in theory" computer simulation with no real world implications. If 80% of transmission is in private homes then you cant control the pandemic but having some mask laws in public places. I would have thought that would be obvious

Your argument  make sense if if you're talking about the inconsistency in the mask wearing policy. 

That's a separate to the issue to the efficacy of mask wearing reducing the risk of infection or the severity on public transport. 

The reasoning behind wearing masks on PT is that is 1. its a confined space, 2 people will cram in and be very close to each other 3. people will be close enough to breath each others exhalations 4. the duration of exposure and hence the viral load can be to the next stop or the next hour, 5. spread is wider as people from different suburbs will aboard and alight along the journey.

Some of those reasons apply to other settings wear masks are not mandatory.  But that doesn't mean masks shouldn't be worn on PT-only that the policy is inconsistent.

People's non-compliance is no reason to abandon the policy.  It irks that after 3 years, dickheads think its ok to have their mask under their nose- or worse- use them as chin warmers.  Some of these people are dumb "freedom fighters" protesting, some are just too dumb to learn.  Dickheads walk in to my room wearing the mask, sit down in my chair 2 feet away from me and then decide its ok to take it off.  WTF?

Again stupidity is no reason to abandon the policy altogether

The other recurring point you make is elimination of the virus as being the goal.  Ideally it is, but reducing how many people are infected at a given time and reducing the severity of the infection is also an important aim.  Masks, distancing, handwashing can all do that.

I dont understand

Covid policy: Wear pink socks while riding a bike
People: Dont wear pink socks while riding a bike
Response: Thats not good enough. Dickheads need to be wearing pick socks while riding a bike

The psychology of beating people down with pointless restrictions is part of policy effectiveness

You mentioned above low cost high impact and easy to do. Washing hands and social distancing is exactly that. But there is a reason why people dont at all times under all public circumstances cover their face. Its ridiculous. Having every mid to late primary school kid for 2 consecutive terms wear a mask. What about the value of the role emotion and facial expression plays in getting an education

There is a reason why face mask law is completely ineffective, but Australia was able to run 4000 infections into the ground with nothing more than hand washing, social distancing and awareness. Compliance is a big part of policy effectiveness and this is why I long said having 3 or 4 rules to control 80% of the virus was better than 20 or 30 rules to try to control the remaining 20%

There is no evidence mask law works outside of the lab. Australia managed to get 5 million (plus undiagnosed) infections in a 3-4 month period with face masks as almost the sole control mechanism. Compare that to countries of similar population and take into account our lower density. Its inconceivable that without mask law we would have had 10-15 million infections (assuming 50% efficiency) in a 3-4 month period. If the virus was able to spread that quickly it would have ended June 2020. Masks did not do a fucking thing. Thats the real world data whatever the reason

But thats all an aside. Thats an old debate. It is now literally whether having mask laws on just public transport, and no other laws outside of aged care / hospitals, will have an impact that can even be measured, let alone make a difference

ie- for health officials to say "If you dont use public transport then for you the pandemic is over"

Reducing the number of people that can get infected, as you put it, is about the big ticket items. Forcing people by law to wear a mask very clearly isnt a low cost high efficiency item whatever the reason behind that. How many times do you have to see the exact same thing fail before deciding it isn't the answer?


To put this another way - when people say wash your hands they dont mean just your pinky finger. When people say socially distance they dont mean just your toes

Your seatbelt example is flawed. People wear seat belts at a time where they are most at risk of collision. They dont have to wear them when at home on their couch or when stationary in the car. To use mask law as analogy for seat belts would be to say that people are most at risk of an infection on a bus, which is entirely false

Imagine if seat belts were only required for right hand turns and people could make their own. You approach an intersection, put on your seat belt, turn the corner, take it off. And if you dont you get fined, if you do thats enough to save your life. Thats the level of rubbish face mask law in "some circumstances" entails

You dont understand where the 5 million cases in 4 months came from? Australia opened up mid December. The total was 250k. After mid February there were nearly 3m cases and it currently sits at 5.5m. Thats 5m cases in about 4 months as you have to take into account the stagger between states

Every state had masks at all times indoors before the outbreak. Every single one of those 5m cases occurred under mask law, some of the toughest in the world. And there is a reason for that. People who didnt catch the virus at the super market caught it at home. Those who didnt catch it on the school bus caught it at school. Those who didnt catch it while wearing pink socks on the way to work caught it at work

Border control and hotel quarantine stopped the virus. The initial response of social distancing and hygiene had a 0.3 R rate which helped drive it into the ground. Real measures with a real impact. Stripping away most measures and replacing them with the toughest mask laws gave us the same numbers as other countries who only had minimal B grade measures in place throughout the course of the pandemic. Countries who were never the envy of pandemic control

The only difference between Australia and the other countries is our virus ran rampant through a vaccinated community, where as they didnt have that level of protection. The proof is in our hospitalisations and deaths compared to other countries. A mandated layer of protection that you argue against, and then aggressively argue in favour of a placebo

Stupidity isnt people who wear masks under their chin. Stupidity isnt people who think having a mask in your pocket means you no longer have to socially distance. Stupidity is people who think that a one sized fits all approach applied in a complex and inconsistent manner, applied across all demographics and education levels, with no regulation or standard, would actually make an impact. The real world data shows the real world impact of face mask law. The real world data for seat belts tells a different story

The real world data is something you cant argue against

@Bluebird.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

We now do have information about infection risk in different scenarios:

https://theconversation.com/heres-where-and-how-you-are-most-likely-to-catch-covid-new-study-174473

Look at the table in that article.

Lets say you take the bus in peak hour.  That would correspond to a poorly ventilated high occupancy situation:

1. and take a short trip and keep your mouth shut.  Your risk of infection is almost 300% higher without a mask versus with a mask
2. and take short trip and speak.   Your risk is 1600% higher without a mask versus with a mask.
3.and take a long trip and keep your mouth shut: Your risk of infection is around 250% higher without a mask versus with a mask
4. and take a long trip and speak.  Your risk is around around 240% higher without a mask versus with a mask

The risk ratios are similar even if you got a well-ventilated but highly occupied bus.

You're still looking at stats and lab results in isolation of the real world. Not only that but the labels for the Matrix arent social situation but are based on actions within 3 broad categories. It doesnt even deliver what the headline promises

That article doesnt prove that public transport is the single most dangerous thing during this pandemic, the highest risk of infection, and needs to indiscriminately be locked away behind face masks in all forms nationally, otherwise hospital systems will be overrun. But, if Joe Average makes some tokenistic attempt to cover half of their mouth with a bit of cloth suddenly its safe

We have data that strongly suggests most people catch it at home. Not only that but the top health officials during a balanced risk mitigation decided if you are not indoors for 4 hours with a Covid case then the number of infections that will result wont make a difference. In other words it is low risk

You need to prove that every single form of public transport, nationally, in every circumstance and density, for every timeframe, is an extreme risk for Covid infection. That this represents our largest number of cases. And that it can be mitigated entirely by self regulation as long as it meets some legislative criteria. And you also have to prove that nothing else fits that level of risk in terms of the objective of whatever it is you are trying to defend

Like I said, stop trying to find logic in what is clearly self interest by health officials. Every response team has reviewed the laws over recent days and made significant changes. This means they all made a decision to keep this law in light of direction, objective, and everything else

The onus is on them to justify why this is dangerous and nothing else is. Why this is illegal and nothing else is. And why a simple gesture is suffice when real science has said all but the highest grade masks actually have an impact