‘What is the advice?’: Paul Kelly evades questions about medical advice on mask mandates

Asked a straightforward question about the medical advice given to state leaders today, the nation’s chief medical officer was evasive.

The federal government’s top medical adviser has declined to specify whether premiers and chief ministers were advised to mandate mask-wearing indoors at today’s emergency national cabinet meeting.

Chief medical officer Paul Kelly appeared alongside Prime Minister Scott Morrison for a press conference after the meeting, which was called to discuss the Omicron Covid variant’s rapid spread through the nation’s cities.

Mr Morrison strongly encouraged Australians to wear masks, but stopped short of arguing for them to be mandatory.

“The health advice that the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee - that was distributed on December 17 - was that masks be mandatory in indoor settings. So has the health advice changed, or are we just not following the health advice anymore?” one reporter asked during the media conference.

“Well, the public health social measures, they are always determined by states and territories. Not by the Commonwealth government,” Mr Morrison said.

“And they are done on the basis of what the risks are in each and every one of those states. So for example, in Western Australia at the moment, they don’t have such a mandate in place there. In other states they do.

“What I’m saying is, you don’t need to be made to do it. It’s the strong recommendation of the work that the chief medical officer has pulled together.

“So I would be encouraging people, strongly encouraging people to wear those masks in indoor settings.”

He said the states and territories would be making “further announcements” on the matter.

Scott Morrison speaking today. Picture; Gary Ramage/NCA NewsWire

“Sorry, can I clarify what the advice is? Is the advice for a mandate, or is the advice for a strong recommendation?” the reporter followed up, addressing her question to Professor Kelly instead of Mr Morrison.

He did not answer directly.

“So, to be very clear, we know masks work. They do protect yourself, they do protect others if you happen to have Covid, and people should wear masks. How that actually comes to be is a matter for states and territories,” Professor Kelly said.

“But what is the health advice?” asked the reporter.

“The health advice is, wear a mask,” said Prof Kelly.

“Did you tell the states though, that they should mandate masks in indoor settings?” a second reporter asked.

“I’ve said that mask use should be used, because we know it works and doesn’t interfere with social gatherings. So masks need to be used.”

The Prime Minister chimed in again at that point.

“Mandates are enforcement mechanisms. And mandates also require enforcement, and that requires resources to be applied to enforcement,” said Mr Morrison.

He argued that most people were already wearing masks in indoor settings in NSW anyway, despite the lack of a mandate.

“They’re actually already doing it. What matters is the behaviour,” he said.

“Premiers will make calls about what’s the best way to encourage people to do that. Some like to use mandates, others like to use encouragement and rely on individual responsibility.

“What matters is that people wear them, not whether people get fined or not.”

Chief medical officer Paul Kelly.

Prof Kelly said the limited data on the severity of the Omicron strain was cause for caution as Australians travel over the holiday period.

“It’s a very new phenomenon. We’re learning a lot. Every day we learn something new about Omicron. But there’s still some things we don’t know about it,” Dr Kelly said.

“And we also don’t know about how that is progressing in Australia in terms of, particularly, the severity issue. What we do know is that as I predicted three weeks ago, it is a transmissible, very transmissible virus.

“It is spreading rapidly around the world, official figures over 100,000 cases – [but probably] many many more than that, because of the need for confirmation being a genomic test, which is not available in many countries.

“Here in Australia ... 500 cases have been diagnosed through that genomic testing. But again, we know that that is an underestimate.”

Speaking to Nine’s Today on Wednesday, Mr Morrison confirmed he had spoken to NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet regarding the rising Covid-19 cases and that “practical” decisions would be made in response.

“I have spoken to the NSW Premier quite regularly because that is where we’ve seen the biggest surge in cases. Practical decisions will be taken there” he said.

“You know, you should be wearing [masks] anyway. You don’t have to wait to be told in this country.”

NSW broke its daily record with 3057 cases on Tuesday, while Victoria had confirmed 1245 new infections.

The Prime Minister said he had written to all the premiers and set out the latest advice from medical experts.

“There are important messages about the strong recommendation about mask use inside and things like that, and that is very sensible,” he said yesterday.

“One of the key messages is, yes, we’re going to need to continue to calibrate how we manage this virus and how we live with this virus in the face of Omicron.”

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

Mask wearing has been one of the most controversial rules throughout the pandemic. For many states and territories it was among the first restrictions to be introduced and the last to be rolled back.

The ACT has already announced new mask restrictions, which kicked in at 11.59pm tonight and will remain in place over the Christmas and New Year period.

Residents are now required to wear a mask in all indoor settings, including retail stores, work and public transport.

New restrictions will also be introduced for aged care facilities, with residents only allowed to have five visitors a day, although this limit will be scrapped for end-of-life cases.

Queensland and Tasmania have also brought back mask rules.

Mr Morrison reiterated his support for mask wearing on Wednesday morning, urging people to “exercise common sense” by wearing masks in indoor settings and washing your hands regularly.

He also issued a message to young people.

“Particularly for young people, can I encourage you on this? Because that is where Omicron is moving most rapidly, among young people,” he told Sunrise.

“So just be conscious of those sensible things, particularly if you are going to be in contact with elderly people. This is just common sense and good responsibility and we will work closely with the states and territories today to get as much commonality as we can.”

However, Mr Morrison said he would advise premiers to not introduce heavy-handed restrictions or lockdowns, saying Australians have to “move to the next phase of how we live with this virus”.

“The time for that heavy hand is behind us. We just need to live with this virus sensibly and practically.”

Speaking on Sunrise, Mr Morrison said the daily case numbers are no longer the main focus, with ICU rates now the “most important thing”.

He said booster Covid-19 vaccines will be the key to keeping hospitalisations and ICU rates under control.

The PM also said officials were considering different options around testing, including rapid at home testing.

He noted that travel requirements in other states was putting a lot of pressure on testing clinics in NSW and Victoria, with residents having to line up for hours to get tested.

“The states are going to have to talk to each other about that because decisions being made in one state, they are impacting on the testing resources in other states,” he said.

“So they are the practical issues that we will have to talk to today, but also the role rapid antigen testing can play in relieving the burden, particularly rapid antigen testing that can be made available that can enable people to travel.”