Editorial: How mandatory masking could be a better option than future lockdowns

An employee wears a mask at a startup company in Paris. France is now mandating masks in all workplaces. Photo / AP

EDITORIAL

As Aucklanders were out and about on Sunday, many people were wearing an extra accessory, which also happens to be one of the best weapons against the coronavirus.

Mask use was less noticeable on people out exercising but was routine at supermarkets. They are not the most comfortable pieces of anti-viral body armour — it is easy for glasses to fog up and breathing to be a bit laboured.

But masks work by starving the virus of opportunities to infect people, especially when used in combination with testing, tracing, social distancing, avoiding indoor crowds and hand hygiene. That means fewer people in the community circulating the virus. Masking is particularly important with Covid-19, as in an estimated 40 per cent of cases people do not know they are infected.

Masks can reduce the distance virus particles can travel from an infected person.
They are also a barrier of sorts between the virus and an uninfected person. That's important with Covid-19 which can be damaging and have long-lasting symptoms.

United States research in July found that the risk of infection can be reduced by 65 per cent for the person wearing the mask. In Kansas, 15 counties with mask mandates reduced coronavirus case numbers in comparison to counties that did not.

While this sensible piece of protection has been politicised by some people as an affront to freedoms, plenty of others see it as a way for populations to regain freedoms during the pandemic and aid economic recovery.

The Economist put a dollar figure on mask benefits, calculating that an American wearing a mask for a day is helping to prevent a fall in GDP of US$56.14.

In countries where transmission levels are a lot higher than here, a combination of measures is being used to allow offices to reopen. Since European Union countries emerged from lockdown in June, coronavirus case numbers have been steadily rising from formerly low levels. That has resulted in regulations for masking outside as well as indoors in some places.

Here, masks will be mandatory for everyone on public transport from Monday. New Zealand is behind other countries in getting the public used to masks but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said lessons had been learned as more information about Covid-19 came to light, and the Government moved with new evidence.

This could be a step towards masks as a substitute for lockdowns, where masking would need to be mandatory and an information campaign would be required to inform people of the best options to wear.

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker has said that widespread mask use at level 2 could help avoid harsher measures.

"Getting high uptake of such behaviour will need some compulsion in the same way that physical distancing is also mandated," he said.