In light of the Avalon cluster in NSW.
Just curious since NSW Govt has a pretty weak stance on mandating mask usage but rather just strongly recommend.
What are your thoughts on mandating mask in places/areas where you can't observe the social distancing rule e.g. public transport, shopping malls etc?
Edit: Guess it happened in the end.
Complete liberty only exist if you live alone in a cave somewhere that does not affect anybody else. Even then it's arguable.
This crisis has really brought out the selfishness and lack of civic ed all around the world.
Potentially big gains if it drops transmission.
It's not even certain?
If you state it is certain, somebody will dig up a healthcare worker who got infected while wearing PPE.
It's a statistical risk management thing. If every case in Sydney has already been identified then everyone could wear masks 24/7, or not wear masks and the infection rate will not change.
But if there are still unidentified infected people, wearing masks is likely to lower transmission.
Arguments for liberty and against tyranny don’t hold up in my opinion, as the government are keen to reverse measures ASAP to support the economy etc. so I don’t see any slippery slope.
The only reason the government cares about the economy is to keep people under control. They've found a new way to do that so I don't see why they'd be in a rush to get the economy going again. They have people by the balls either way. Mass surveillance, tracking everyone's movements, mass dependency on welfare, and a population living in fear are more appealing to the government than a good economy.
As for "staying home", I think we should adopt the same rules we've always had - those who are afraid can stay inside to live their life with 0% risk. Those of us who want to spend our 80 years on earth fulfilling our potential instead of living under a rock should be free to do so.
This is frankly very selfish, even beyond the paranoid idea you are being controlled by the incompetents in government.
You need to have a long hard look at yourself, and decide if you want to be part of a community or a burden everyone else has to carry as you make our society weaker.
To be crystal clear, by watering down public safety with messages about your desire to reach your “potential” just exposes your complete self centred view.
You have the advantage of being a witness to a over a million deaths, so there is no excuse for this, like the other ignorant fools were prattling on at the start of this pandemic.
You are choosing your convenience over the lives of innocent people, it is disgusting, and disgraceful.
You are behaving in a way that reflects extremely poorly on you and your upbringing. It should make your parents and others who raised you ashamed.
It calls out that you aren’t much of a man, but I suspect that was pretty clear to everyone who knows you. Maybe the only person being fooled on that count is yourself.
I hope you do better soon, so that when you are older you won’t have too much shame.
The telling sign of low intelligence and a lack of counter arguments is ad-hominems.
Congratulations. Move along now buddy, I think I hear someone coughing.
@SlavOz: No, not a rhetorical device. This isn’t an argument about what is a good idea or not.
Everywhere your preference for “liberty” has been tried, many have died. This is a fact, not a matter of opinion.
By advocating it, you are showing your preference for some to die rather than you to be inconvenienced.
You have chosen for yourself.
That is why I don’t think you are much of a person,
Everywhere your preference for “liberty” has been tried, many have died.
Many more have died at the hands of government overreach than all pandemics combined. Read some history.
Communism killed more people than the total number of COVID infections worldwide. And they did it while saying the same line people like you tout - "just trust us, it's for the greater good!"
@SlavOz: Your fear of scomo turning into hitler is enough for you to rail against measures to stop virus spread in a pandemic?
I can’t argue that is a great example of somebody terrified of 0% risk.
But in any case, you said you didn’t want to be staying at home because it cramped your ability to reach your potential.
That was the specific selfish spin you put on it. Own it, don’t chicken out.
Does it work or is it as effective as a broken condom?
Do you see surgeons wearing broken condoms or nothing at all?
I don't know.
The answer is no they don't.
I'm a mask wearing when I'm in Sydney. Don't disagree with the need to wear it at places you can't social distance.
However, how are we going to enforce the mandate? Have more police presence like in Vic, issuing fines? (Which I support) Have a police on each bus? (Which I don't think is best use of resources)
Easy to issue fines. They're not wearing it. Once word gets out, people will be more likely to wear it. Just say its mandatory from tomorrow. Warnings will continue until Friday, that anyone caught without one needs to suffer for being poor.
The hard part is to have such large police presence, not spotting the individuals.
Coming from Vic, its not really difficult to mandate. When most people are wearing masks and you have the odd person not, society does the mandating for you.
Vic mask laws are lax now, you dont need to wear a mask in the office.
Its not a thing you can kind of half do. Still rather not go into the office if i have to wear a mask
Just wait until COVID from Sydney comes down to visit.
Already here in Victoria apparently.
Yeah, totally agree. Society shuns those who don't wear the mask. Our society trusts the government (to some degree), its one of the key reasons why we were able to get on top of the second wave in Vic.
Honestly masks should be mandated everywhere. If someone is infected and sneezes you've got it in the air. 1.5 m won't mean jack squat in that situation. Considering how infectious this virus is I don't know why people keep um and ah-ing over mask wearing, just get on with it.
I agree 100%.
Wearing a mask is such a simple thing, it's cheap, it's not a major problem for the vast majority of people, and it has an effect (quite a significant effect) on the transmission rate. Most especially in the case of asymptomatic people.
The main problem I see is that wearing a mask doesn't do much for YOU. It helps other people. And a seems a large percentage of people are basically selfish.
It's sad that in this country people are actually arguing over something so small that can have such a large impact. People in Japan and South Korea just bloody do it yet simpletons here cry that they do nothing and that it infringes on their human rights. Talk about weak.
Asians are more compliant while westerners are more defiant. That sounds like another normal Tuesday in our great country.
@whooah1979: Asian cultures are considered towards the collective vs Western cultures are individualistic.
If you're afraid of the virus, wear a mask. If it's as effective as you say it is, you should be safe.
Why force other people to wear it too?
@SlavOz: What kind of question is this. Considering how infectious the virus is, it's a no brainer to do something as simple as wearing a mask. I'm not saying masks are 100% effective, but any sort of barrier would help especially to catch large droplets that could have become airborne.
I honestly don't understand people like yourself who say "why force others to do it?" or "if others don't want to wear a mask let them be", it has to be a group effort. Look at what happened in Sydney, the driver of the bus ferrying people to and from the airport didn't wear a mask and spread the virus around. One weak link in the chain resulted in the whole chain breaking down.
People who choose not to wear a mask or complain are simply selfish weaklings IMO, putting their own needs above others in a bloody global pandemic.
Yes, but a lot of people would rather not keep distance and not wear masks. That's why pollies are reluctant to make it mandatory unless it gets really bad. This is the beauty of idiocracy.
"…a lot of people would rather…"
And that is the problem, isn't it.
There are lots of things I'd rather do, but common sense kicks in and I don't.
I agree with Belgarath above; if enough people wear the masks (without waiting for it to be mandatory), consensus makes it the accepted and preferred outcome. Those that choose not to should be ostracised.
Yes I wished we had a consensus, but unfortunately common sense is uncommon.
NSW Govt has a pretty weak stance on mandating mask usage
Most people, as you see in the poll and IRL supermarket/malls have started to wear mask again… the people we ought the be worried about are the "Karens"
i was in a supermarket and a shopping centre yesterday and mask wearing would have been around 25%
Maybe that's why the virus is making a comeback?
Australian population 25 Million, China Virus deaths 908 = deaths as a percentage 0.003632%
Amount of people affected by virus 25,000,000
Also "The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) lists accidental falls as the leading cause of death that is not linked to a disease or self-harm. There were 2,474 accidental fall deaths in 2016"
In the US, the country with the worst pandemic response, COVID deaths in 2020 were about 320k.
Heart disease kills double that amount of people in the US every year.
Let that sink in for a moment. Wear a mask, stay inside, close your business, give up your religion, reject human interaction, all so we can go back to watching millions of people die every year without caring.
And still that is only 0.10%, plus a good number of them are people with poor heath and covid may have just tipped the balance. What will they be like with something like the 1918 Flu. As the saying goes "Never let a good crisis go to waste", Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Someone 🤔 of the 👶.
We need to ban stairs ASAP! We have a real stepdemic at our feet!
People should be able to make their own choice because this pandemic has shown me one thing - it is full of contradiction and hypocrisy.
Wear a mask but then sit down and have a meal, take the mask off. Just like being on a plane, can't eat or drink with a mask on.
Sanitise your hands before entering a shop is good in theory - but then in reality, you take your clean hands and touch your unclean phones, wallets, pockets, unsanitised credit cards and so on.
Scott Morrison likes to talk how tough they are on border control and no Australians can come into the country when this is complete BS. The truth is, in November 2020, 3,700 New Zealanders were allowed into Australia, 1,300 from the UK, 1,200 from China, 1,100 from India and 780 from USA. More info, see https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-trans…
We are not allowed to stand up at a bar or restaurant and support local businesses that are struggling - so I go to Woolworths and buy $500 worth of food, so I can go have a party at home where 50 people from 50 different households can come drink, mingle, sing, dance and party away. The next day, those 50 who came to my party - can go 50 other house parties the next day - so in effect that 2,500 close contacts in two days just from my random 50.
The government wants us to go back to work yet there is ineffective distancing on the buses, or let alone light rail where it has been near capacity recently.
Download the Covid safe app because it works - but it really didn't.
There are so many more …..
Yes, but my understanding (and I definitely could be wrong) is that is not a binary thing where exposure to a single virus will positively give you covid, the chance of you contracting it is proportional to the viral load you're exposed to, and those measures - wearing a mask for as long as possible at a restaurant outing, imposing more distance in a pub outing by not using stand up tables that are designed to pack more people in, etc - are to reduce viral load while avoiding a lockdown.
I think your points are practical, makes sense and are valid;
My point is, somewhat an addition to yours is, that there are other forms of allowed activities that could increase time/quality/closeness of exposure eg. having 50 (well that was the rule a few days ago until it changed to 10 in NSW) in any household; there is unrestricted contact at home (there are no sitting rules at home, you can karaoke at home, you dance if you want at home, no need to distance from anyone even though it is 50 different households in the one house); and then those 50 could go to another party the next day with 50 new people per party, so that's effectively 2,500 very close contact / unrestricted contact in the space of 48 hours.
It is interesting how the UK and USA is having out of control cases right now yet just in November, more than 2,000 of UK or USA citizens entered Australia and potentially spread Covid or their new scary af mutations into Australia.
I was at a wedding the other night. People were allowed to dance, just not on the dancefloor. So the entire venue huddled up around the dancefloor to dance on the carpet instead.
We are heroes for keeping our community safe.
Months prior, people wanted to visit their family and friends but they weren't allowed because of the risk of transmission. Meanwhile the government grants a special request for Black Lives Matter protests to go ahead, with 10,000 people attending.
Clearly you can't catch COVID if you're protesting for a progressive cause.
In a democracy you spend so much time arguing about the matter everyone is infected by the time you have come to a compromise. Not that I like communism or authoritarian dictatorships. Common sense goes out the door because people want to breath in germs freely. They don't understand their personal freedom will just lead to life sentences for some (who die) and others (who need to isolate).
Only hospital grade masks are effective, random cloth masks create a bacteria nest right next to your mouth. So mandatory masks will do more harm than good.
I am eagerly waiting for your next comment about 5G
Are you saying that wrapping your shirt around your face is gonna stup virus particles? I'd live to see evidence that a cotton blend cloth has a density that a virus cannot simply pass through. I'll wait…
Masks inside yes.
Outside no.
Simple and easy to understand.
No, but it would be one of the less excessive laws.
Was in Officeworks yesterday. I observed to staff that no one was wearing masks (I was) and was told it's not mandatory. I really feel if you are serving people, standing next to them, answering their questions, both parties need a mask. I attended a wedding over the weekend where people were obviously sick (maybe a cold maybe not), I'm now wearing a mask everywhere to protect the people in coming in contact with, just in case. Surely this is commonsense?
My daughter works in retail, and she and her colleagues would love mask wearing to be mandatory. They are exposed to hundreds of people, in varying states of cleanliness and heakth, in a confined space, and are routinely handling goods which have been tried on by customers.
I'm not not a germophobe, but I would like to see hand sanitiser and wipes as a permanent fixture in shops, and mask wearing on public transport encouraged.
I did a degree in Microbiology. Among our epidemiology lecturer's first words to us were "The bugs will win". I wear a mask.
This is common sense 😷
agree, however common sense is not as common as we can see in IRL and some of the comments here 😷
perhaps what is missing is for the "common good".
Sadly common sense is not very common it seems.
Please hand in your aluminium pot and pan… your effort will help us defeat the evil, not like us, odd one, baby eating, anti minion Morrison, bad guy.
It has been scientifically proven that mask make absolutely no difference what so ever…. it is a psychological practice devised to make you feel as if you are contributing to the evil, not like us, odd on, baby eating…. bla bla
Can't speak for the effectiveness of the masks but I feel that wearing masks in Victoria has been a constant reminder of the existence of COVID-19 and that we really can't just go back to life as normal yet. I maintain it's a small but glaring and necessary reminder of the virus and is more useful for the psychological reminder to be cautious.
If they mandate it, I would at least prefer if something that's a decent quality that I can trust, be available at a cheaper price from the government.
I don't want to try to look for a bargain and have to weigh the options on whether I can trust the masks on bargain or not, look for masks because people decided to stock up on it etc etc etc.
Keep in mind that even if we let the virus spread freely without doing anything to stop it (like the US), it would still kill 50% less people than heart disease ever year.
Around 30,000 Aussies die of heart disease every year. The media or the government never mentioned these deaths. Not this year, not last, not ever.
All of a sudden were living in hysterical fear because of 800 deaths. It's amazing what a government-controlled media landscape can accomplish.
That comparison makes little sense. Heart disease isn't contagious, people can't involuntarily contract heart disease from others that have it, it can't spread throughout close confines, etc, etc.
And of course heart disease stats are mentioned, you see Heart Foundation items on the news, probably not often enough, you're right, but it is mentioned, as it's a condition that for many is preventable.
Gyms are the worse, and no one wears them there
OP you got your wish - despite NSW having significantly less cases and transmission than before, they have decided to make masks mandatory indoors. Probably didn't want to let Dan Andrews hog the tyranny spotlight all to himself.
Word of warning though, the rules don't apply to offices or other workplaces. Thank heavens for the clinical trials showing that COVID can only spread at church or the gym.
Absolutely. A BLM rally will have zero covid spread but your small church meeting will be a super spreading event. Everyone knows this. /s
Also masks that aren't N95 quality are useless, cotton blends are about 0.1-40% effective and also weaken your immune system by restricting airflow and by re-infecting yourself with your own putrid breath. It also appears that medical grade masks are quite useless aswell, I'm surprised tbh.
Link 10 shows at the bottom of this article.
https://www.technocracy.news/masks-are-neither-effective-nor…
Small cost in hassle. Potentially big gains if it drops transmission.
Arguments for liberty and against tyranny don’t hold up in my opinion, as the government are keen to reverse measures ASAP to support the economy etc. so I don’t see any slippery slope.
So if it just comes down to “I don’t like it”, well, stay home for a bit.