Professor Paul Kelly endures fiery breakfast TV stoush over mask mandates

Chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly has denied claims he recommended the national cabinet reintroduce mask mandates in a tense TV interview.

Chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly has been hounded by Sunrise host David Koch, who probed the top doctor on whether he was “overruled” by the national cabinet on mandating face masks.

During an interview on Seven’s breakfast program on Wednesday, Professor Kelly strongly urged the public to wear masks indoors, work from home, and get their Covid vaccinations up to date.

Koch questioned whether Professor Kelly had wanted to reintroduce mandatory mask wearing but had been ignored by national cabinet.

“Do you recommend mandating masks, and you were overruled by politicians? Why don’t you just mandate it if it’s so bad?” the host asked.

Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly did not confirm if he recommended a mask mandate. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

Professor Kelly doubled down on his claim the mask issue was a recommendation and he hadn’t told national cabinet to mandate them.

“I have very strongly advised national cabinet on Saturday, the health ministers around the country on Sunday, and in media yesterday as well as in my statement that I sent out yesterday, which is very much the same as the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee … increasing mask use right now is really going to help,” he said.

“Indoor mask use does stop the transmission, it will slow the spread. How that is achieved is really a matter for others.”

Koch hit back accusing Professor Kelly of not sharing the full truth.

“I reckon you have been overruled and you’re being too polite,” he said.

Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid has slammed state and territory premiers for not already introducing mask mandates.

Dr Omar Khorshid has called on mask mandates to be re-introduced. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

“I don’t know how far they [politicians] can let the numbers go while still saying we don’t need mask mandates,” Dr Khorshid said.

“Everything we’ve heard from the federal government and various state health ministers and premiers is that they’re not about to introduce mandates.

“But governments are ultimately going to be held to account by the public for their failure to navigate this whole process.”

Dr Khorshid foreshadowed the inevitable introduction of mandatory mask wearing in some states.

“At some point, I think it’s quite likely we will have a period of mask mandates in certain states,” he said.

Omicron wave a ‘new pandemic’

Earlier, infectious diseases expert Sanjaya Senanayake said cases of the Covid Omicron variant had spread so aggressively the wave should be declared a “new pandemic”.

“I am thinking about it as a new pandemic, but that’s not to say that the World Health Organization will say that,” Associate Professor Senanayake told the program.

Mask wearing has been strongly encouraged. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

In highlighting how infectious the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron strains were, he said almost everyone was suscptible to contracting it.

“Even if you were vaccinated in the past and had Covid with different strains, you are still susceptible to BA.4 and BA.5,” he said.

The vaccine still helped prevent severe cases of the infection, Associate Professor Senanayake said.

“That’s why it is good to think about it is almost a new pandemic, because these are our own weapons and we have Pfizer and Moderna developing vaccines specific to BA.4 and BA.5,” he said.

“I think when we had Delta and everyone was getting vaccinated, I was hoping there would be a finishing line, but then Omicron came.

“BA.4 and BA.5 are so infectious, though, I am hoping it will get rid of all competitors just for the moment until we get those specific vaccines in place.”

Major measure to be brought back

Director of Infectious Diseases at Mater Health Services, Paul Griffin, told the program case numbers had become so severe that a major hospital measure was on the verge of needing re-introduction.

“When the system gets overwhelmed, we struggle to provide the care for things outside of Covid and to be honest we’re getting to the point,” he said.

“We’re having to look to deferring nonurgent things and as a system becomes increasingly overwhelmed, if we defer things, that creates a backlog that is very hard to catch up as well. “We need to do everything we can to reduce the burden as quickly as possible.”

A staged return of non-elective surgeries began for NSW in February.