The latest ESR data showed hospitalisations with severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) in Auckland crossed the seasonal baseline in late March, when 54 cases were reported within a week. Herald Illustration / Guy Body
Could it be time to bring in rules around mask use?
We’re not officially into winter yet, but as the days get darker and the nights get colder – many of us are already starting to come down with bugs and viruses.
The question comes as New Zealand looks on the cusp of another Covid-19 wave similar in size to our last two.
University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker told The Front Page he was part of a team of 13 researchers who conducted what is probably the most extensive review of masks worldwide.
“If you’re sick and you’re wearing a mask, that greatly reduces the number of particles you put out into the air. And similarly, if the other people around you are wearing masks, they get a lot of protection.
“The masks you have to wear are these respirator-style masks that have a good fit. The N95 type masks fit around your nose and mouth and don’t have gaps in the sides, whereas the blue medical surgical masks don’t do that.”
Baker said there is an argument for introducing policies around mask use - especially around vulnerable people.
“Waiting rooms and hospitals and doctors surgeries and also if you’re visiting aged care facilities and so on. You do need to be protecting the people there and I think that’s a setting where masks are important. And I think we need more consistency with this.
“Because we’re seeing people getting Covid-19 in hospitals and unfortunately sometimes dying from those infections and that shouldn’t happen.”
We live in a world that has a vast number of mandates, Baker said, so introducing a policy around mask use should be a natural progression.
“Think about how we make it safe to travel on the roads, how we make it safe to travel on aircraft, and so on. They’re based on huge quantities of mandates, which is just another word for rules. And so I think the seat belt metaphor is quite valid for masks on public transport. It’s a way of making it safe for you and in the case of masks, also for the other people on the bus,” he said.
Led by University of Oxford’s Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, the research into mask use was published in the journal Clinical Microbiology Reviews and shows masking in settings like workplaces, transport, and other public settings can help people avoid catching infections and passing them on. Their use can also reduce Covid-19 reinfections that are driving the rise in Long Covid.
“We now have a clear pathway to action, including reducing the number of respiratory infections in winter 2024. Masks can also provide effective protection in a public health emergency, for example, if avian influenza (bird flu) starts to spread between humans,” Associate Professor Amanda Kvalsvig wrote.
And the threat of bird flu is closer than we might think.
Avian influenza has been detected on an egg farm in the Australian state of Victoria. While this strain is not the highly pathogenic H5N1, the country reported its first human case this week in a child who authorities said had been infected in India but made a full recovery.
“I’m very worried about what’s happening with bird flu,” Baker said.
“One thing to remember is even the 1918 flu only had what we call a ‘case fatality risk’ of 2 per cent of the people who got it died from it and that was still a catastrophe. At the moment avian influenza has a case fatality of 50 per cent of the people who are getting this infection.
“That’s based on 800 or 900 cases that have happened over the last 20 years. We wouldn’t expect that level of mortality risk to carry on if it did start to spread between humans. That would be less, but it could be well above 2 per cent - and that would be something that would be just utterly devastating.
“I don’t think any country would tolerate that virus spreading, we would do everything we could to stop it,” he said.
Listen to the full episode to hear advice for making it through this cold and flu season.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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