People without masks ‘are like drink-drivers’
People choosing not to wear masks in indoor settings are like drunk drivers, risking lives by spreading Covid-19, according to epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker.
The comments come after a mask audit by Stuff showed about half of adults are not wearing masks in indoor places where they are required – on buses, in malls and in pharmacies.
The count was held in Whanga¯ rei and central Auckland, and showed mask use was lowest in a Whanga¯rei indoor mall – where 73% of 131 customers observed in a 30-minute period had no mask on.
About 18,000 Kiwis have mask exemptions – approximately 0.5% of the adult population.
On July 14, the Government announced it would provide free masks and rapid antigen tests (RATs), and made a plea for people to use them as the Covid-19 outbreak grows.
On Wednesday, there were 10,320 new community cases of Covid-19.
Baker, a professor of public health at Otago University (Wellington), said these numbers would not be as high if everyone
wore masks and stayed home when they were unwell. ‘‘No-one likes masks – of course, we would prefer that we wouldn’t have to wear them – but we have to because it is almost the last tool we have got to stop transmission in New Zealand.’’
The rising case numbers of Covid-19 in New Zealand was resulting in increasing numbers of people in hospital with the virus, Baker said. While most people do not need intensive care because of improvements in treatment, any hospitalisation displaces other hospital procedures.
‘‘If people isolated perfectly and wore masks perfectly, the pandemic would stop. If everyone did them well, the pandemic would stop or would trickle along at a very low rate,’’ he said.
For this reason, Baker compared not wearing masks to drink-driving – which not only faces stiff legal penalties but is socially unacceptable.
‘‘The correct metaphor is drink-driving: it can endanger you, your family in the car with you and unknown people that you collide with.’’