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.

wrt to the effectiveness of masks.. I usually get a cold/fever/sore throats.. not chronic but much like everybody else...usually 2-3 times a year. Since we've to masks (getting close to 2 years) I've never encountered these illnesses and I credit the widespread mask usage /hand-washing etc.

Anilv

which is not a good thing, immune system needs something to do periodically. When you do catch your next cold you may find it hits a little harder than usual.

My point is that if you are delayed 6 hours you don't have to sit in that terminal, go outside, if its raining go to one of the huge covered car parks. There's many places you can go to get away from the crush if you are scared of catching covid, the mask wont save you if you are physically rubbing against an infected person. Covid is not just hanging around in the air, you have to be near someone or touch what they have touched recently, which is why the 1.5m gap is recommended, once you get to 3 or 4 times that distance its impossible to catch unless you touch the stuff and put it in your mouth through poor hygiene.

I am generally in support of the wearing of masks but, as an example, I caught a reasonably full public bus this morning and everyone on board was wearing a mask, as required by mandate in WA.
However the driver and I were the only two that I could see who wore their mask covering their nose.
Which equates to about 90%+ non-compliant.

There is no point at all in having a "pretend" mandate.

It's quite easy to see in supermarkets in Victoria for instance, as soon as the mandate was removed the customers whipped them off almost instantly, and there has been a corresponding rise in cases, however it's not resulting in massive fatalities as everyone is vaccinated. So it can be reasonably assumed that while masks work, they are not required for most of the population as Covid has lost its bite for the majority of the vaccinated. This is where the stupid message of whether masks work or not is just making the argument stagnant, the discussion is more about whether they are needed vs the severity of the disease.

And yet Dictator Dan openly professes that he bases his decisions on medical advice.

The only medical advise that I have heard since he removed the mask mandate was to continue with masks ( as a minor inconvenience)

Jet 2, BA and Virgin have stopped the wearing of mask (unless they are still mandated at the destination.

Heathrow has stopped requiring them to be worn and Gatwick will no longer require them from 04.00 on Friday 18th March.

We’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole over the last two years, some of the most inane arguments to defend what amounts to telling others how to live their lives, how to manage others risks, go unchallenged with nothing other than emotional hysteria to back them up.

You wanna wear a mask, good for you, your choice.

You wanna go somewhere where people don’t wear masks or don’t wear them properly (comply is the adverb I saw used), good for you, your choice. Just stop whinging about other people not doing what you demand they do.

If you asses the risk of covid is too great at these places where the nasty covid addled, non compliant people meet, don’t go. If thats what you choose good for you, your choice.

If you decide to do what you want, go where you want to go, then demand everyone else comply to minimise the perceived risk to you, grow the f*&k up, you petulant child.

That pretty much sums up my view of where we are at.

The biggest frustration I find in the world today is just that. People wanting to impose their will on others, because they are "right". Just because we are out of lock downs and mandates does not mean you HAVE to go out, stay home if you are worried and let the rest of us get on with our lives. Same for mask wearing.

And stop whining about people who don't comply with air traffic directives too.
If you don't like cross traffic in front of you while you're on short final then bugger off and land somewhere else.

I hear ya Icurus.
For me, the biggest frustration is dealing with inane non-sequiturs as argument to a logical point. You just know these people want to scream “why won't you just do what I demand you do…coz ma feelings.”

We are all governed by rules, it's really the only reason some of your neighbors don't literally throw feces at you in an argument (some still do). If ya don't like rules you need to buy your own island state and live on it for a while. Otherwise all the poor not 1%ers who can't afford their own nation have to live by the rules that somebody else makes.

We only have to hope that the Putin madness stops with Ukraine and we don't end up in a World War situation, then you will really understand what restrictions, rationing, stupid prices and doing things you don't want to mean. The pandemic lockdowns will have looked like primary school practice compared.

2 years at least…

I just find it funny how aggro people get about wearing a mask, and then scream at others for being a 'petulant child'. Meanwhile the rest of the country just does or does not. Sums up the last two years really, a lot of loopy wolves howling at the moon. We're at the other end and no, Dan has not become the leader of the 5th reich, yes millions have died from the disease, no we all don't have 5g installed internally and we are almost back to where we were 3 years ago with everyone pissed off at petrol prices and how hard we have to work to buy a small hovel in the burbs.

BTW I think we're all &*^*&ed by years end.

Do pilots of commercial GA aircraft types which don't have a cockpit door have to wear a mask in-flight in Australia and New Zealand? Many thanks

Come on, of course we follow rules, otherwise how could I drive through a green traffic light without too much stress but that does not mean ALL rules are justified or even sensible.

I will put this in an aviation context for you. In the early days of ultralights in Australia, they could not be flown above 500 feet agl as this would be unsafe. Now they cannot be flown below 500 feet agl as this would be unsafe.
When you have a state government instructing solo drivers in cars to wear a mask you know they are making this stuff up.

In what way?

World War III

you seem to be missing the point that wearing a mask prevents the wearer from spewing virus laden spittle all over anything within range to then be picked up by random people and spread around.
I know you don’t think you spit while talking but people do it’s a fact.
Deny it if you like and do but you can’t deny that fact.

With respect, you don't know what is going on behind the scenes. You don't know how far Putin is willing to take this. A good read is the NATO action in 1983, Able Archer. Just how close the world got to nuclear war. Present day, two VERY unstable world leaders, although one of them is reduced to dribble farm status and is not really calling the shots anyway. I don't doubt it could happen, thinking that "nah, they wouldn't do it as they know it means MAD" is a bit, naive.