Australians urged to mask up as nation hits grim milestone

A push to reintroduce mask mandates across the country is under way as Australia hits a grim milestone.

There have now been more than 10,000 COVID-19 deaths nation-wide.

Chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, Catherine Bennett, says Australians should “absolutely” be wearing masks when they can’t social distance.

But she’s not convinced mandates are the way to achieve that.

“When you have rules in place they start to wear out, peoples’ compliance or adherence to those rules, and the enforcement of those rules. We’ve seen that happen,” she told Heidi Murphy, filling in for Neil Mitchell.

Professor Bennett is calling for a renewed focus on educating people on their risk and the benefits of masking up.

“I was looking at the data from NSW over the weekend and the number of people who reported an infection in the last four weeks in rural areas varies between two and five per cent, and we know that’s probably less than half of the actual infections out there, and in the cities that gets up to 10 per cent, so you’re actually talking about one-in-10 people out there who’ve had an infection and may still be infectious,” she said.

“Helping people to understand their risks relative to where they are, I think can also make a difference.”

The epidemiologist shared a word of warning to those who’ve already had COVID-19 and aren’t concerned about getting it again.

“We think multiple infections might also have a different kind of risk for long-COVID,” she said.

Press PLAY below to hear why Australians should mask up