Not a lot of value Masks to be mandatory outdoors in Sydneys west

By Mary WardUpdated July 29, 2021 â€" 11.12pmfirst published at 4.19pm

Western Sydney residents will be required to wear masks outdoors from Thursday in a change to lockdown settings that epidemiologists say will likely have little impact on transmission.

From midnight, anyone living in the Blacktown, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool or Parramatta local government areas will need to wear a mask at all times when outside their home.

A man wearing a mask in Fairfield earlier this month. The local government area is one of eight where masks will be mandatory outside.Credit:Kate Geraghty

It is the first time masks have been mandated outside in Greater Sydney, where face coverings have only been required in public indoor settings, on public transport as well as in busy outdoor areas, such as markets and takeaway coffee queues.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the new rules were designed to ensure people were not caught out without a mask. The public health order in operation across Greater Sydney already required people to carry a mask when leaving home.

“We’re seeing too much evidence of people who are not wearing masks when they need to,” the Premier said.

“Or, if they are outdoors, they’re coming into contact with other people and not having a mask.”

The Premier added that mandating masks outside the home would assist police to enforce compliance.

There have been only a handful of confirmed instances of transmission of the Delta variant outside in recent months, all while seated for an extended period.

It is believed a woman in her 70s caught COVID-19 while sitting outside at Vaucluse’s Belle Cafe in June. The transmission was also recorded among seated spectators of sports matches at the MCG and AAMI Park in Melbourne earlier this month.

On Thursday night, NSW Health announced further exposure sites in Sydney, including Crazy Nonna in Campsie, Ampol in Croydon, 7-Eleven in Camperdown and Limra Indian Spices in Campsie. Anyone who visited these sites during the specified times is considered a close contact.

Other venues on the latest list include Liverpool Post Office, Ingleburn Village Shopping Centre and Woolworths in Wentworthville.

Professor Greg Dore, infectious diseases physician at St Vincent’s Hospital and epidemiologist at the Kirby Institute, said he did not support the measure given the lack of evidence of benefit and minor role outdoor transmission had played in Sydney’s outbreak.

He said the move to impose the mandate only on western Sydney would create further social division, and measures such as diverting Pfizer doses to the area or mandating N95 masks and rapid antigen testing for essential workers would be more effective.

“I would prefer a whole of Sydney mask mandate, although I believe that is also unnecessary,” he said.

University of Sydney clinical epidemiologist Dr Fiona Stanaway said it was “reasonable” to introduce the requirement, given previous known exposures and the transmissibility of the Delta variant circulating in the west.

“However, there’s much less risk of outdoor transmission than indoor transmission with any variant of the virus,” she said.

Dr Stanaway said the biggest benefit of the rule change was simplicity.

“Sometimes you might just be going out for what you think is a walk, and then you bump into someone or go out for something else [such as into a supermarket], and you need a mask.”

ANU infectious diseases physician Professor Peter Collignon said the chance of catching COVID-19 from someone outside while social distancing was “extremely minimal”.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of value in making people wear a mask outside, other than to help them to not forget a mask when they go inside.”

He said wearing eye protection, such as face shields, in essential workplaces would be a better additional restriction to place on areas with high caseloads.

Although it has not yet been a part of restrictions in NSW, mandatory masks outdoors has been a common component of lockdown settings in Victoria. The state exited lockdown on Wednesday but masks remain mandatory indoors and outdoors.

People line up outside the Commonealth bank in Campsie, a growing COVID-19 hotspot in the Bankstown Canterbury LGA.Credit:Janie Barrett

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant urged members of the public to wear a mask that fit the entire lower half of their face, noting “the amount of noses, chins” exposed by people wearing a mask was cause for concern.

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Mary Ward is a health reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.

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