Australians have been prepared, so far, to accept that measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are based on sound medical advice. This has led to a remarkable degree of compliance with lockdown and isolation and reduced the spread of the virus.
There is clear evidence that distancing has been effective in reducing COVID-19 infections. There is an argument that Australia’s lockdown was harsher than needed, but by and large the public has been prepared to trust the medical advice.
That trust may not last if medical advisers display inconsistency in their advice about risks of infection.
Official medical warnings to people not to attend Black Lives Matter protests have struck an inconsistent note.
Some medical voices supported the protests — notably the Public Health Association of Australia pointed out that racism is a real and ever-present public health issue.
However, official Australian government medical advisers including the chief medical officer issued stern warnings for people not to protest. There were similar messages in NSW and Victoria.
It is hard to see how this fitted in with the other major social event for many Australians this weekend and last — restaurants and bars.
Rules differed across the country.
In Victoria, venues were limited to 20 patrons (which will increase from next week).
In NSW, bars, pubs and restaurants could serve up to 50 patrons (a limit that will be lifted at the end of the month), with one customer per four square metres and groups of not more than 20.
Four metres per person is the theory. In practice, anyone who has worked in an old pub knows there are always odd spaces where nobody can sit anyway — spaces that count towards the total per person.
Groups were allowed, so people sat next to each other on big tables.
It’s possible chief medical officers had a different concept of what restaurants would be like under the rules: visions of tables placed discreetly apart, starched white tablecloths and quiet conversation as waiters silently drift among separated diners.
A more common sight down the pub was people sitting down together, scarfing down steak and chips and chicken parmis, loud, alcoholic, cheery and determinedly un-isolated.
Multiply that across tens of thousands of venues and the total numbers exposed are much higher than those attending protest marches.
Transmission of COVID-19 is significantly higher in enclosed spaces (by almost 19 times, according to one Japanese study). Bars and restaurants pose a much higher risk than an outdoor event.
Black Lives Matter protests the previous weekend had attracted crowds of up to 10,000, and this weekend’s events in Perth and Darwin and elsewhere also saw thousands of protesters.
The risks of these were low, primarily due to being outdoors, of limited duration, and maintaining distances between people.
Even if a rally attracts thousands of people, nobody goes round hugging or breathing on every other attendee. People stay in their own small groups. An individual attendee has contact with only a few people.
Organisers of the Black Lives Matter protests have been taking care to minimise risks, including encouraging distancing and advising attendees to wear masks.
There will be more cases of COVID-19 in Australia. Stopping protest marches will make little if any difference to the number.
The discovery that one Black Lives Matter protester in Melbourne had tested positive was seized on by anti-protest commentators prematurely. We need to wait to see whether it leads further. It may translate into further cases — but given the evidence on low transmission in outdoor environments, probably will not.
If, by contrast, all bar and restaurant patrons were tested — a hypothetical scenario, infeasible with current testing regimes — chances are many more positive cases would have been spotted than that single one in Melbourne.
We expect inconsistency in politicians. Last Friday in Crikey Bernard Keane excoriated the current display of double standards over protest warnings.
Medical advisers, however, should be more balanced. If medical advice is one-sided, biased against some forms of social gathering and favouring others, people will quickly lose trust in it.
Should health officials be more balanced with their advice? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column.
Crowds are OK as long as someone is making a quid out of it. Everyone knows that.
Anyway the plague epidemic is over that’s why everything is opening up to get the “economy” and the great sacred serpent of “Growth” back on top of anything else.
Besides the really smart leaders never took much in the way of positive anti plague action. They knew that the most affected group would be the poor and the stupid so no great mischief there, and benefits all round.
Do these “experts” go shopping? Why don’t they get out a bit more – to a large shopping centre and see how “social distancing” is working – before having a go at those rallying on trumped up health grounds – when their real ideological reason would be as embarrassing as the sight of those rallying are so embarrassing.
Ah but are the experts independent from Scotty Skidmark or are they forced to give advice that suits his agenda or forfeit their jobs?
Yes consistency is the key and for most thinking people, the rule mandating 10 people at a funeral where mourners can easily be separated in a chapel which holds 100+, are unlikely to be eating steak and chips or boozing next to each other; but must be outraged at 30000 noisy yelling protesters shoulder to shoulder in the centre of our cities last weekend.
If you listen to gurus like the ABC’s Dr Norman Swan, all ICU’s would have been overwhelmed by April 9, Imperial College London modelling was holy writ, and face masks were of limited use and could even make the chance of infection worse. Now Norman is glibly walking back on most of this, ICL modelling was deeply flawed, and face masks were really quite useful after all.
It seems to be common sense that if projected droplets spread the Virus, and coughing and sneezing should be into hankies, tissues or for the new generation – elbows; then face masks would have to be of some use in stopping these droplets spreading.
Having make several trips to Japan, it is routine for citizens with a sniffle and bus drivers to wear face masks to protect themselves and fellow citizens, so it seems very unlikely that they do it for no effect.
And guess what, after 80 tonnes of our PPE stock was shipped to China early in the year by fellow travellers like Twiggy Forrest on private jets – the little Aussie battler could not buy a face mask when we might have most needed it.
There’s no consensus on face masks because there are so many variables. Are you going to change it every 4 hours? Do you know how to fit it properly? Are you going to take it on and off? Facemasks only lower, not stop, transmissions in hospitals and healthcare workers have access to more masks and are trained to use them correctly.
Shipping PPE to China, in what looked like an early stage of the epidemic, was sound policy, as if we’d been able to stop the epidemic in China then it wouldn’t have become a global pandemic. Of course, with hindsight, that boat had long sailed. The problem here was that the national pandemic plan, established in the Howard era, had been dismantled by Abbott and so we had no PPE stock on hand
Are you talking about the Australian Govt shipping PPE to China OR clandestine 80T of stuff going on private jets?? So we had no PPE stock on hand due to Abbott but we could ship 80T out of Australia? Consistency Proftournesol?
EG: Since a face mask weights only about 10 grams – you would get about 100,000 to the tonne. 80T alone would be 8 million masks. For a frontline health worker using 10/day a year’s supply for about 2200 health workers.
BTW, Norman Swan is now saying we could eliminate the Virus is we all wore face masks for 2-4 weeks……Mr Consistency itself.
The Government established a specific reserve of medical equipment for pandemics, this was allowed to run down and so wasn’t available. this is separate from stock kept by private suppliers or available for purchase. The evidence on face masks isn’t conclusive one way or another, that usually means that if there are any gains, they are marginal. You’ve also got to interpret the studies, facemasks worm correctly with good sterile technique and changed regularly, may or may not reduce transmission in studies, but these don’t automatically translate to real-world benefits where masks are often worn incorrectly, are slid up and down faces introducing cross-contamination, and are worn long after their effectiveness diminishes. Norman Swan got his medical degree 40 years ago, he’s a working journalist, not a clinician. He lacks that clinical experience that only comes from years of clinical exposure
“You’ve also got to interpret the studies, facemasks worm correctly with good sterile technique and changed regularly, may or may not reduce transmission in studies,”
Professor, could you explain why face masks worn correctly with good sterile technique are used by all staff in an operating theatre even for a colonoscopy….?
Yes, because face masks, worn correctly, are helpful in reducing airborne spread of bacteria and, to a lesser extent, viruses. Hospitals are most concerned about bacterial spread and masks are very helpful there. Masks are single-use in hospitals, usually worn for a short period of time, are often used with a sterile technique where the mask isn’t touched by the user’s hand, work around the user’s chin, or worn below the user’s nose. The masks in hospitals are changed regularly and are not reused.
If you see the way that masks are used on the streets, people touch their masks introducing cross-contamination, wear them with poor sealing around the sides that minimises its effectiveness, are worn for too long and are likely reused both cross-contaminating and limiting effectiveness. How many people wash their hands before putting their mask on, and wash their hands immediately after removing it? This is why I’m saying that even if you find a well-designed study that proved 100% effectiveness of face masks in reducing transmission, you need to look very carefully at the study design and methods as the results would only be valid under those exact conditions. Don’t assume, that on a population level, that their use by untrained people will also reduce transmission rates.
If massive crowds were allowed at places like footy stadiums, or if pub/restaurant openings werent so heavily restricted, then this article may have had a point.
As it is, there is no legal arrangement now where tens of thousands can gather/march in close quarters, and rightfully so.