intelligent piece on SBS News discussing the wearing of masks while covid continues to run amok in Australia.
the start of it follows.
SBS NEWS:
"Masks reduce the spread of COVID-19.
"Why aren't more people in Australia wearing them? Australia's per capita COVID-19 rate is among the highest in the world, so why are so few people masking up?
"The Victorian government announced on Tuesday it would provide more than three million N95 face masks to the public for free over the next few weeks, in a bid to limit the transmission of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses.
"Research shows that wearing a properly fitted face mask can help to reduce the likelihood of contracting COVID-19, or at least reduce the number of virus particles entering someone's system.
"So why aren't more Australians wearing them?
"The number of people wearing face masks during Australia's latest wave of COVID-19 is much lower than is needed to bring down high levels of transmission, according to the director of the Burnet Institute, Professor Brendan Crabb.
""It's hard to be precise, but it's probably not much better than 20 to 25 per cent in most places in Melbourne, at best," he told the Medical Journal of Australia's InSight+ podcast this week.
"UNSW infectious disease expert Associate Professor Holly Seale said that's because many people are returning to their pre-pandemic behaviours.
""We didn't have a culture of wearing masks during winters or respiratory infection periods," she told SBS News."[People are] going back to what is known to them, what they're used to doing, and, I suppose without any kind of reminders or restrictions around it, what else is nudging them to wear a product?"
