So when will we lose the face masks on aircraft and in the terminal?
 

I have been in three capital cities this week, work and play. In bars and restaurants and mixing in crowds. No mask wearing and yet when I get to the airport on goes the mask.

Can anyone really now say with a straight face that sitting on an aircraft or terminal carries more risk than anywhere else in our cities? We cannot be worried about foreigners as we have plenty of C19 here already.

The issue that I see is that the bed wetters like the idea of masks and who is going to be the one to recommend getting rid of them?

I would love to hear a valid justification now for still having them. Or will they be like the plastic screens at the supermarket and we will be stuck with them forever..

Living with covid my a55 :mad:

Problem is the culture of all airport ground staff makes Putin look like some limp wristed civil libertarian. These jackbooted and mainly overweight men and women whose sole pleasure in life is making passenger’s journeys as miserable as possible will not want to cede that extra bit of power.

Shows you how good things must be if all we can gripe about are some masks and plastic screens

Attended my local library recently. Face mask and proof of vaccination required. Supermarket next door, no masks and no check in needed. Very confusing, to say the least !

If an article written by Steve Waterson in the Weekend Australian December 24-26 last year is correct (the relevant part is a bit lengthy to quote here) according to "a Scientist who advises the British Goverment's SAGE committee on airborne transmission of the virus" it is somewhat pointless even wearing the mask!

According to this Scientist, the size of the material gaps in the blue surgical masks are up to 1000 times greater than the size of the virus! And cloth-mask gaps can be 500,000 times the size.

I have been told much the same by a few Medicos.:hmm:

Britain is leading the way once again. Relaxing mask requirements in airports. BA and Virgin Atlantic the first to relax requirements on board.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60757887

nah, nah, nah, nah.

You are obviously reading the wrong science. There's only one science, the hysterical leftard science that governments refuse to release for public consumption.

Waterson writes for his audience. The argument about the size of the virus versus mask materials is utterly ridiculous. The virus doesn't commute in the air as single viral entities. It can't because, apart from anything else, it needs to be in a sustaining fluid. The virus is carried in respiratory droplets many, many times larger than the virus itself. That's what the masks stop.

So you're saying that the Scientist concerned does not know what he's talking about.:confused:


The Scientist is also quoted in this article that "..Aerosols in the wearer's breath escape masks and render them ineffective.."

Once again, I have been told much the same by a few Medicos.

If that's what "The Scientist" said then yes, NFI what he or she is talking about. Viruses don't travel in the air as individual entities.

Improper fitting masks is an entirely different argument.

I guess your medico mates will be able to convince the surgical and infectious diseases community that they're all wrong and masks can be dropped as one of the most prevalent forms of infection control.

Believe what you want.
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Leaving aside the issue of how effective masks are, why wear them at airports and on the aircraft when they are not required almost anywhere else?
The same can be said for the requirement on public transport and taxis.

Anyone who says masks are ineffective at some level of protection vs airborne transmission is just plain stupid. However the effectiveness does vary from material and proper fitting, anything that provides a block between whats in the air and your face provides protection. Even having fly screen over your face will afford some minute protection but it's not worth the effort, ie you will probably still catch covid as it will not stop enough of it. It all comes down to how much you are exposed to, vs how much is caught in the material vs how much your immune system can handle.

That being said most airports are large, well ventilated spaces, as long as you can maintain physical separation from others there is no need for masks. On board an aircraft it's probably pointless, as you are sitting in a poorly ventilated tube where you are surrounded by whatever is expelled from other passengers, it would really come down to whether you were seated near to a covid + or not. The masks would only be of benefit to say, passing through security, where you are confined in close proximity to others, but moving constantly through the area in short time, or on a transit bus etc. The obvious protection comes from a C+ individual coughing, the mask will slow down and catch a lot of the ejected particulate, reducing both the amount of virus ejected and the distance in which it's ejected to. That's assuming the wearer doesn't take off their mask to cough, which I've seen on numerous occasions.

Yes I can say that. Caught up in T4 Melbourne Friday for 6.5 hours due to 4 hour flight delay. I tested positive to covid Monday morning. The previous 4 days in Melbourne were 100% covid safe, masked, hire car, no public transport, restaurant etc and none of the 4 people I interacted with have covid. Issue with terminal and flight as I see it, most pretend to drink hence no mask. Covid is not the flu for many of us.

I am not sure that I follow your logic. You think you caught C19 on Friday at the airport. How does that mean it carries a greater risk than anywhere else where people gather?
You say your previous four days were “Covid safe”, so that cannot compare to the airport? Were you wearing a mask at the airport? If so, did it help?

You’re right, it’s barely a cold for most of us.

MickG0105; Purely out of curiousity, what are your qualifications entitling you to make such a statement?

Considering how big Melbourne airport is and the outside areas available you must not be practicing very good "Covid safety". Once you check in you have ample spaces to remove yourself for 6 hours at least 10 meters away from others.

So Pinky The Pilot, here you have it, it doesn't matter what science you quote, it ain't right. Jump on board the leftard train.

Not in the Jetstar terminal you can't. On Friday they were packed in like sardines because of the long weekend in Vic and the ACT. A lot of pax aren't even bothering to wear a mask in the terminal so I could well imagine picking up Covid at Melbourne Airport on Friday.