How a Chinese restaurant explains Australia's mask riddle

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'If it’s not accepted the virus can be transmitted through the airborne route, you don’t need to wear a mask. Dogmas don’t die easy”

One of the best places to start if you want to understand the debate about whether we should be wearing masks in public is on the third floor of a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, seven months ago.

Two of the most-senior infection-control experts advising the federal government belong to the latter group. That’s why social distancing and hand washing are health authorities’ front-line weapons, rather than masks. This diagram, from a paper by Professor Morawska, shows how a virus can spread through a poorly-ventilated room.Yet the 1.5 metre rule has become “dogma” and held up the push for masks, said Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Air Quality at the Queensland University of Technology Professor Lidia Morawska.

Associate Professor Philip Russo is deputy-chair, and president of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control.Sydney Morning Herald “There may not be direct contact between people, but they are close together in small, crowded spaces,” she said. “That’s exactly the space where these small particles don’t have to hang in the air for very long to get to someone else.”

“And the inappropriate wearing of masks can be more dangerous. You can end up touching the mask a lot, touching the face a lot, and end up contaminating yourself that way.”Setting aside how long COVID hangs in the air, the evidence for how well masks actually work to stop the spread of infection is more contested than you might think.

That paper has led many experts, as well as the Australian Medical Association, to back calls for mask-wearing in Melbourne.

 

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To all the anti-maskers, we will buy your grandmother's clothes back. lol

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How a Chinese restaurant explains Australia's mask riddleOne of the best places to start if you want to understand the debate about whether we should be wearing masks in public is on the third floor of a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, seven months ago | liammannix liammannix here politicians are more worried about a run on medical masks Disgraceful liammannix 1/2 Very well researched & presented article Liam. Notwithstanding the paucity of PCR testing here in Japan & the related dubious low numbers of infections, it’s poss that the high % of the pop using masks has significantly slowed / somewhat arrested the spread of SARSCoV2. liammannix 2/2 I’m shoulder/shoulder with dozens of other people on my 60min train ride each morning - as are millions of other Japanese - & despite such extreme / sustained close contact only a few outbreaks have been traced to transit sources. perhaps masks are indeed very effective.
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Source: 9NewsAUS - 🏆 10. / 72 Read more »

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Face masks: Aussies ‘let down’ by official advice on wearing masksABC coronavirus expert Dr Norman Swan has said Canberra’s failure to mandate mask wearing weeks ago may have contributed to Victoria’s outbreak. I’ve wondered why other countries are making mask wearing mandatory but not here.. Not nearly as much as the security guards What's the explanation for so many false positives?
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Coronavirus updates LIVE: Victoria records 288 new COVID-19 cases as Scott Morrison announces slash on international arrivals, QLD border reopensThe Victorian government will order over 2 million reusable masks and 1 million single-use masks to ensure more Victorians have access to the added protection Asher_Wolf It's not protection, it is prevention Asher_Wolf 'will order' the fuck... It's July masks are bad for your health. do the research. people with asthma will suffer.
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Melburnians urged to wear masks as Victoria records 288 new coronavirus casesVictoria records a record number of coronavirus cases with 288 new COVID-19 cases diagnosed since yesterday, the largest daily increase of the pandemic so far. The headline is not correct, I accidentally watched that little piece, the advice is that people in a hotspot should consider wearing a mask. I say accidentally bc this whole thing here in Australia is a great big nothing, 27 million people, is it 200 deaths or less? Investigations everyday ‘we never hear the outcomes ! make it menditary!
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