There is no justification for reintroducing mask mandates in Victoria when we now have one fifth the cases of Covid compared to earlier this year

Reintroducing compulsory mask wearing in Victoria won’t keep us safe, it will only drive us backwards into a deeper social, emotional and economic spiral.

The reintroduction of mandatory mask wearing in Victoria would be catastrophic.

The problem is not the masks themselves, but the devastating impact they would have.

New mask mandates would send the message that we are losing the battle against Covid when the opposite is true.

Compulsory mask wearing wouldn’t help keep us safe, it would drive us backwards into a deeper social, emotional and economic spiral.

Parents would stop sending kids to school, major events would see a drastic downturn in patronage and people would stop going out. Businesses just starting to get back on their feet would be forced to close their doors once more.

Bringing back the mandatory mask rule would have a devastating impact. Picture: Getty

There is no justification for reintroducing masks when we now have one fifth the cases of Covid compared to earlier this year. There are now around 50,000 Covid cases in Victoria, down from a pandemic-high of 250,000 in January.

Healthy people with nothing to fear would once again start to feel unsafe and scared if they were forced to wear masks.

We cannot afford for this to happen when there is no need for new mask mandates.

Australia is one of the great success stories when it comes to Covid, with 39 deaths per 100,000 population compared to 300 in the US and other countries.

There is no need for new mask mandates. Picture: Nicki Connolly

However, more needs to be done to ensure people have their vaccinations up to date.

Australians are one of the most highly vaccinated populations in the world, but we are losing our advantage as fewer people are getting third and fourth doses.

Let’s not forget that those who are unvaccinated have significant comorbidities or are in nursing homes are those most likely to die.

Many of these tragic deaths are preventable – almost three-quarters of those who died last year from the virus had not received their third dose of the vaccine. Thirty-seven per cent of those who died had not been vaccinated at all.

Rather than listen to those urging mask mandates to return, politicians and health officials must do more to keep these groups safe and facilitate access to vaccine boosters.

It is reassuring that state government ministers say they have no intention of bringing back mask mandates, but there’s a broader national and international push in this direction.

The most important thing we’ve learnt from the past two years is to take care of people’s mental as well as physical health.

Bringing back mandatory masks would return us to the dark days of 2020 and 2021, which could have a bigger toll than Covid in terms of mental health.

It must not happen.