<
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-01/japan-singapore-south-korea-omicron-wave-and-mask-wearing-impact/101266844>
'As the mask mandate debate rages on in Australia, epidemiologists and medical
specialists suggest looking to countries where citizens are perfectly happy to
wear them to see how powerful the simple infection-control measure can be.
Nearly two and a half years into the COVID-19 pandemic, countries where
mask-wearing is a cultural norm are seeing some signs of success as the
persistent Omicron sub-variants spread throughout their communities.
University of Otago public health professor and epidemiologist Michael Baker
said underlying the widespread acceptance of masks in some countries was a
sense of personal responsibility to protect others from COVID-19.
"I'm looking at the countries that appear, on paper, to be keeping their
mortality very low … despite having lots of circulating virus, and it's
basically the Asian countries, particularly Japan, South Korea, Singapore," he
said.
Professor Baker said Singapore was a good comparison.
"They did have elimination for a long time, and then they decided that it
wasn't compatible for their economic model so they switched to allowing
transmission. And, really, they're still keeping case numbers and,
particularly, deaths down," he said.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
