According to health experts, the best advice is that every Victorian, including children over the age of eight, should wear industrial respirators such as N95 or P1 masks.
They should be worn in indoor settings that attract large crowds but have poor ventilation, from shopping centres to supermarkets, restaurants and on public transport.
The more tightly fitting P2 or N95 masks are available at hardware stores, supermarkets and chemists. But if only medical masks are available, wearing a cloth mask over the surgical mask or “double masking” can provide added protection. Knotting the ear loops before tying them around the ears can also reduce gaps, one study shows.
The far bigger issues are at the federal level - ending the free RAT program, ending the isolation payments, combined with going to 4 week cycles for treating cases as re-infections.
I don’t see any outcome other than people not testing - so they don’t test positive - so they can keep working. Not sure what else people are supposed to do. Even if you did have savings or sick leave to isolate for a week - if testing positive 4 weeks later is treated as needing to isolate again, then those will dwindle fast.
Slightly expanding a mask mandate or not really doesn’t get to the rapid removal of the interventions that actually would work - making it viable to stay home if you’re sick. Everything else we could reasonably do doesn’t matter if sick people have to keep working.
Is this the same Age that was questioning why we were listening to the Chief Health Officer so much? I agree with what they are saying, to some degree, but the double standards is mind blowing.
Yep, I had my first booster just last month, 7 month gap after my second shot and I think I have timed it very well, this will last me through the winter period where we are seeing the predictable resurgence.
I’m with you. We did our time. We were promised vaccinations would end any major restrictions.
I’m vaccinated, boostered and will get my winter booster. Life has been pretty normal the last few months and there is no reason that it shouldn’t continue. We will get through another wave like we did in Jan and we will need to be able to do the same with future waves.
It is interesting how a lot of the same people that whinged that Dan would have too much power, are now angry that he hasn’t followed the health advice and don’t think we have enough restrictions. You will never win in that position whatever you do. It will always be people saying that there are either too many restrictions or not enough.
I wear it on the train cos you are meant too but it’s about the only place.
I kinda find it weird that the Australian Media is still a bit obsessed with Covid and the new variants despite the fact that these new variants are spreading all over the world and there is barely a mention of it in the media in other countries. In fact, on the CBS News website. The only mention of it from the past 24 hours is the Kansas City Royals having to drop players because they are travelling to Canada which has vaccination requirements for entry and those players are unvaccinated.
Showbiz website Deadline has also been covering COVID outbreak in California in recent months. It reported this morning (Australian time) that Los Angeles County had moved to “high” community level as designated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that Omicron mutant BA.2.75 had been detected in the area for the first time.
if Los Angles County remains at ''high ‘’ community levels for 2 weeks the indoor mask mandate will be reintroduced and the mandate will expire two weeks after the county drops to the medium threshold
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will sign off on restoring the $750 pandemic isolation payment, reversing course on his earlier stance to let the payment lapse over winter.
National cabinet has been brought forward by two days to Saturday morning by Albanese in a snap decision that underscores the urgent need to address the growing number of COVID cases in Australia.
Albanese will advocate for a time-limited reinstatement of the payment at the cabinet meeting as infections skyrocket and hospitalisations increase.
My comment was about convening National Cabinet and bringing it forward by two days and putting the $$ back on the table without deliberately delaying it.
I think the payments were still available when he was PM. The policy stated they would end at the end of June. Which at the time was reasonable. However, at the moment if they want to reduce those numbers they need more people doing the right thing.
I think troiboi has a fair point - as we have had a government that has been stubborn before and it has felt like we are needing to really fight for certain things.