Dr Nick Coatsworth has called on Australia’s face mask rules to change as the country moves towards the next phase of the pandemic.
On Tuesday, the former deputy chief medical officer said ‘the tide has turned on masks’ now 94 per cent of Australia’s over-16 population were vaccinated against the virus.
‘People recognise they had a place at a time of uncertainty, but are appropriately re-assessing their value especially in schools,’ Dr Coatsworth said.
Masks are compulsory for students in Year 3 and above in Victoria and highly recommended in NSW.
‘It is a good time to re-evaluate primary and secondary school mask policy in all Australian jurisdictions,’ Dr Coatsworth said.
Last month, the medical expert said the available data did not prove masks were particularly effective at protecting children under 11 against the virus.
His push for a change in mask policy comes after NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet flagged that mask use in the state would be no longer mandatory within a fortnight.
Dr Nick Coatsworth has called on Australians to ditch masks – especially in schools – now the ‘uncertainty’ surrounding masks has lifted. Pictured is a masked shopper in Queensland
Former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth (pictured) fronted the government’s vaccine rollout campaign. He said the available data did not prove masks were particularly effective at protecting children under 11 against the virus
‘People recognise they had a place at a time of uncertainty, but are appropriately re-assessing their value especially in schools,’ Dr Coatsworth tweeted
Mr Perrottet said it was a ‘civic duty’ to bring workers back to the CBD, with residents set to be asked to return to their desks and mask rules scrapped from March 1.
Until the NSW government’s rules on face coverings expire on February 27, masks must be worn in all indoor public venues including supermarkets, shopping centres, pubs and cafes.
Dr Coatsworth – who was the face of Australia’s vaccine rollout before resigning from the federal government role at the end of 2020 – also shared a message highlighting how Covid poses a higher risk to smokers.
‘Nothing you will do in life will make you healthier than quitting smoking,’ he wrote in a separate tweet.
He linked to a post by South Australia Health, which encouraged the state’s residents to get vaccinated and quit smoking to best protect themselves against the virus.
The early morning posts came a day after the Novavax vaccine was finally made available in Australia on Monday.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the vaccine’s protein-based formula could give hesitant Australians ‘the extra push they need to get their first jab and kick start their protection against Covid-19’.
Novavax uses a traditional protein-based vaccine, whereas the likes of Pfizer and Moderna use the more novel mRNA technology.
Dr Coatsworth has been outspoken about Australia’s route out of the pandemic since leaving the federal government.
The top doctor also highlighted how Covid poses a higher risk to smokers, and shared a tweet urging them to quit their habit
‘Nothing you will do in life will make you healthier than quitting smoking,’ Dr Coatsworth wrote in a separate tweet
Last week, he suggested there may be better options to manage coronavirus than half-yearly booster injections.
He retweeted an interview with Professor Sharon Lewin in which she said: ‘Chasing variants and boosting people every six months is not a viable strategy for the world’.
Data shows effectiveness of Covid vaccines can wane over months and with new variants, with a study from the CDC finding over four months protection from hopitalisation with Pfizer’s jab fell from 91 to 77 per cent, though Moderna‘s held steady.
‘We won’t be able to manufacture that amount [of boosters], and you’ll never be able to keep up with the variance,’ Professor Lewin, who leads the Doherty Institute, told the Australian Financial Review.
She said a better strategy would be to have what is called a ‘pan-sarbecovirus’ vaccine – a single vaccine that could prevent or weaken the effects of known and future variants of Covid, as well as any similar emergent virus.
Novavax uses a traditional protein-based vaccine, whereas the likes of Pfizer and Moderna use the more novel mRNA technology. Dr Coatsworth shared a tweet urging smokers to get vaccinated
While still in it’s very early stages there is work being done on this by several laboratories around the world, with the World Health Organisation issuing a report outlining the state of current research on January 28.
‘Structural similarity between sarbecoviruses should enable development of a pansarbecovirus vaccine … Many approaches are highly promising and feasible,’ Dr Phil Krause, chair of the WHO Covid vaccine research expert group, said.
Professor Lewin said this approach would be more sustainable than repeated mRNA vaccines.
‘This is not wishful thinking. People are publishing capabilities to do this now. So, we might see them in clinical trials even as early as this year,’ she said.
There is also a shift away from ‘blunt, population based-blanket rules’ to a strategy of managing disease, hospitalisation, and the specific features of variants, Professor Lewin said.
Booster vaccines for Covid every six months are not workable and there could be better solutions Professor Sharon Lewin (pictured) said
Dr Coastsworth retweeted and interview with Professor Lewin in which she said repeated booster were not ‘viable’
She added there is also the chance another strain could emerge that is more dangerous than highly infectious but mild Omicron variant, triggering a ramping up isolation and quarantine restrictions again.
But these could be more targeted because we now have tools for managing the disease than we did not two years ago, such as vaccines, anti-viral medications and better contact tracing procedures, she said.
Australia is cautiously reopening as Covid case numbers fall, with the federal government announcing last week the country’s international border would open to tourists before March, students have also returned to classrooms, and Australians can freely travel across the country – with the exception of WA.
The nation seems to be following the lead of Britain and Denmark where almost all restrictions around coronavirus have been lifted, while the only country in the world appearing to be holding to a strict Covid-zero policy is China.
This shift requires Covid to be viewed as endemic – a permanent fixture much in the same way as influenza – manageable, though still dangerous.
