2020 Masks Timeline WHO’s U-turn Covid-19 Coronavirus Lockdowns Quarantine Curfews Pandemic

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Translated by The End Consultant Verologist Ad Cambridge University and Naked Scientists Dr. Chris Smith is with us now, Hi Chris. Hello, Kim. Are face masks effective and would you do you wear one on a plane? No, save your money. Go and spend it on something useful instead that you enjoy doing, like having a beer. Those face masks are absolute rubbish and they do absolutely nothing. So are you saying that viruses can get through face masks without any difficulty? Depends on the face mask. The kinds of masks that we're talking about that you go and buy off of street vendor and then you wear on the underground or you know, wear on the tram or something, wear around the streets. Those are absolute useless. If you are in hospital and you are fit tested for a proper protective mask, those do work. And the reason they work is that they form a proper seal around your face and around your nose and mouth. And you also wear eye protection and they have very stringent filtering as well. So unlike the ones that are cheaper nasty by the street where there are big gaps around the sides of your face and every time you cough and sneeze it just comes flying out the side. And also they dampen. So as you breathe they get damp and that dampness just makes a nice conduit through for the virus particles. And the virus particles are absolutely miniscule compared to the enormous gaps in the fibers in the mask. For all those reasons they're absolutely useless and they make people feel better. And as I say warn you off of hanging around with somebody who might be infectious at the time but beyond that they're just cosmetic. Good to know. Thank you Chris. Dr Chris Smith. Some of you may have heard the interview that Kim Hilded with a virologist Chris Smith from Cambridge University. He was very clear on this. You can use a face mask if you like, but it is not really any protection. Medical masks like this one cannot protect against the new coronavirus when used alone. When you wear them you must combine with hand hygiene and other preventive measures. WHO only recommends the use of masks in specific cases. If you have cough, fever and difficulty breathing you should wear masks and seek medical care. If you do not have these symptoms you do not have to wear masks because there is no evidence that they protect people who are not sick. In terms of wearing a mask our advice is clear that wearing a mask if you don't have infection really reduces the risk or is not at all. We do not advise that. Now when you see people and look at the films in China and South Korea, everybody is wearing a mask. Right now in the United States people should not be walking around with masks. You're sure of it because people are listening really closely to this. Right now people should not be walking. There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you're in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet. But it's not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And often there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face. If you do not have any respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough or runny nose you do not need to wear a medical mask like this one. Mask alone can give you a false feeling of protection and can even be a source of infection when not used correctly. Mask should only be used by healthcare workers, caretakers or by people who are sick with symptoms of fever and cough. I see people wearing masks. You'll use a mask because a lot of people are going out buying up the incineratiser, buying masks and also toilet paper. But is there any reason why masks are something that people should be using? So for the general public if you don't have symptoms there's no need to wear a mask. The thing is the virus can still get in through your eyes so if somebody is going to sneeze on you the mask will only protect your nose. The people who will need to be wearing masks right now is if you are symptomatic you don't have symptoms. If you're sneezing wear a mask because we know that the particles that you sneeze out could possibly infect people. So what that does is keep those particles inside your mask, you can't infect yourself. There are different types of masks. So the ones that people are buying at the supermarket are what are called surgical masks. They're the rectangular ones and you'll see that they've got gaps in the back here so they're not fully protecting you. The ones that our healthcare workers have are different and they'll have a full seal around that face. Those are very important for our healthcare workers and we need to make sure that they're around for them. Hi folks, I'm asked the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Jenny Harris to come here to Dining Street. Tell us about the value of wearing face masks. You see face masks around the face? Is there any point to that? If a healthcare professional hasn't advised you to wear a face mask, it's usually quite a bad idea. People tend to leave them on, they contaminate the face mask and then wipe it over to something so it's really not a good idea and doesn't help. The average member at the public wandering down the street, this is really not a good idea. What tends to happen is people will have one mask, you can imagine they don't wear it all the time, they'll take it off when they get home. They'll put it down on a surface that they haven't cleaned or they'll be out and they haven't washed their hands. They'll go and have a cup of coffee somewhere, they half hook it off, they'll wipe something over it, they'll put it back off. In fact, you can actually trap the virus in the mask and then start breathing in. So they could be putting themselves more at risk while wearing a mask. It just doesn't, yes, because of this issue of if you like behavioral issues, which are really important when we're talking about infectious diseases, people tend can, in fact, it adversely put themselves at more risk than less. Healthy people are being warned against using face masks to protect themselves against the virus. As Justin Conway explains, experts fear incorrect use could lead to more infection. It's becoming commonplace. On the streets and in supermarkets, people are increasingly wearing face masks, just as a precaution. The state government's advice on wearing face masks is in line with the World Health Organization. Under its guidelines, masks should only be worn if you have a cough, fever and difficulty breathing. Or if you are healthy and taking care of someone with these symptoms and or someone with a confirmed case of COVID-19. When you look at some of the masks, people are wearing. You can see there is a huge range of products out there. And while they may offer some sense of security experts worn, if you wear a mask the wrong way, it could actually make you sick. When I've been walking about, I've been seeing people touching the front of the masks, adjusting the masks on their face and then going and touching other things. What we've got to remember is that front of the mask may be picking up different pathogens. And the same goes for gloves. But to your evidence point about face masks and wearing of face masks by the general public. This has been a controversial area in pandemic preparedness and planning for the 15 years that I've been involved in it. And indeed, I was on the phone this morning to a colleague in Hong Kong, who's a professor there, who's done the evidence review for the World Health Organization on face masks. And we're off the same mind that there is no evidence that general wearing of face masks by the public who are well affects the spread of the disease in our society. Yes, it is true that we do see very large amounts of mask wearing, particularly in Southeast Asia. But we have always seen that for many decades, and it is entirely wired into some cultures that masks are worn quite frequently in open spaces. It is very different, but in terms of the hard evidence and what the UK government recommends, we do not recommend face masks for general wearing by the public. Patrick, anything to add on that? I don't think so. I mean, the evidence on face masks has always been quite variable, quite weak, quite difficult to know exactly. There's no real trials on it, and we've undertaken a review, we'll give our advice to ministers, and they'll make decisions about what to do around that. If you're working in a hospital, in a care home, then there's a need for a mask. And so we've got to make sure that that is the top priority when the evidence around the use of masks by the general public, especially outdoors is extremely weak. The recommendation from the stage has been completely clear, which is that there is weak evidence of a small effect in which a face mask can prevent a source of infection going from somebody who is infected to the people around them. It doesn't, let's say, make sense on the science, it doesn't make sense on the facts. And here's an absolutely fascinating fact. A few months, a few weeks ago, if you look for papers, policy papers, research papers, saying whether masks were a good idea, there were several announcements and papers, some of which had disappeared from their positions on the net, which were hostile to the muscles. Yes. There was a statement by the wind power organization, which was definitely against the worry, well, Now a few weeks ago, the World Health Organization did a reverse sparse and changed its mind. In light of evolving evidence, WHO advises that governments should encourage the general public to wear masks where there is widespread transmission and physical distancing is difficult, such as on public transport, in shops or in other confined or crowded environments. As of Monday, the 15th of June, face coverings will become mandatory on public transport. We'll make these rule changes under the national rail conditions of travel and the public service vehicle regulations for buses. This will mean that you can be refused travel if you don't comply and you could be fined. Transport operators will be able to refuse permission to travel where someone isn't using a face covering. And this weekend, I'm taking powers through the Public Health Act, leading to fines for non-compliance too. We've therefore come to the decision that face coverings should be mandatory in shops and supermarkets. Last month, we made face coverings mandatory on public transport and in NHS settings. Under the new rules, people who do not wear a face covering will face a fine of up to £100 in line with the sanction on public transport. Should an individual without an exemption refuse to wear a face covering, a shop can refuse the entry and can call the police if people refuse to comply. The police have formal enforcement powers and can issue a fine. And Debra Cohen, the medical correspondent of News Night on the BBC, has an amazing scoop the other day. She actually discovered that she put it to the WHO that her contacts would inside the world, help organisation had told her, that the position of the WHO on Muslims has been changed because of political pressure, not because of medical reasons. The debate is deeply political. News Night understands that the World Health Organization Committee that reviewed the evidence for the use of face coverings in public didn't bat them. But after political lobbying, the WHO now recommends them. First and foremost, masks and face coverings will from 11.59pm Wednesday night be mandatory for everyone in Melbourne and Mitchell Shire. 176 people have been fined by Victoria Police in the past 24 hours for breaches of the state's coronavirus restrictions. Another anti-masco who thinks it's his right to not wear one. Where do you get the powers from? What were you on? You've come up to me. After minutes of refusing to cooperate. We're going to place you under arrest until we can confirm who you are. Yeah, I can tell you who I am. But we need to confirm who you are. You don't have to hold me. You don't have to hold me. I'll tell you. In the past 24 hours, police have issued 176 fines. 51 of those were for people caught not wearing a face mask and 55 people were fined for curfew breaches. A mother who refused to wear a mask and show identification was also arrested. The ordeal captured on camera. On masks, why have you chosen not to mandate a mask? At the stage. And is that something that's still on the table? Could we still be mandated masks? Yes, we could still see mandated masks. We haven't done that as yet. One of our concerns is that not everyone will be prepared. And so you may, for instance, wish to go to your local supermarket or do a click and collect with a local hardware store to pick up masks. And of course, we wouldn't want people being fined without having them while they're in the endeavouring to get them. We continue to ask everyone who is on public transport and planes to wear a mask or face covering. Given the recent transmission we have seen on this form of transport, Cabinet has decided to move to mandating the wearing of face coverings on public transport for level two and above. These new orders will come into force from Monday. This isn't a decision we took lightly, but we know masks protect you. And the people around you. In light of evolving evidence, WHO advises that government should encourage the general public to wear masks where there is widespread transmission and physical distancing is difficult. The government should be wearing a mask when they're outside for the next three months at the minimum. Every governor should mandate that mask that mask is not a mask. Every member should be wearing a mask when they're outside for the next three months at the minimum. Every governor should mandate. Every governor should mandate. Mandatory mask wearing. It's not about your rights, it's about your responsibilities as an American. As part of the 100-day challenge, I'm going to be asking the American people to wear a mask for the first 100 days of my administration. It's not a political statement. It's a patriotic duty. Let's just set partisanship aside. Let's end the politics and follow the science. Worrying a mask is not a political statement. It's a scientific recommendation. Music