It is one of the last COVID rules to be scrapped following two years of restrictions lead by health advice.

Masks, too, seem to be being left behind. Once mandatory in public places, as the rule have loosened, fewer people are choosing to wear one.

So what does that mean for people who are still masking up? Are you still protected if others aren't wearing one?

Here's what you need to know:

Do I still have to wear a mask?

In some places, yes. Across Australia masks are still required in hospitals and healthcare facilities.

This rule applies to anyone aged over 12 except in Victoria where it applies to anyone older than 8.

Masks are also required in indoor areas for anyone who tests positive to COVID-19 or is a close contact, with the exception of your own home.

In most states masks are also required in correctional facilities and justice centres.

However, mask wearing is still encouraged by the states on public transport, in settings where you can't physically distance and when around people who may be vulnerable to COVID-19.

Will wearing a mask stop you getting COVID if not one else is wearing one?

Wearing a mask will provide some protection, but is unlikely to be completely effective, explains the head of epidemiological modelling at Monash University's School of Public Health, James Trauer.

"It is also quite dependent on how the mask is worn and many other factors, such as the amount of COVID around in the community and the setting you visit," he says.

He says wearing a mask is still considerably better than nothing.

"However, it is likely that the greatest effect is when the infector [the person with COVID] is wearing one," he says.

"This is because wearing any sort of mask should markedly reduce the number of larger droplets they expel.

"This is one of the strongest justifications for requiring everyone in the population to wear a mask — particularly indoors where most transmission occurs."

He says in Victoria multiple investigators were able to show a considerable reduction in transmission when the state-mandated face coverings in most settings in July 2020.

"We likely saw that effect because even people who didn't have symptoms and so didn't know they had COVID were still wearing masks and so reducing their risk of transmitting the infection to others," he says.

"A review of population-wide studies found that if everyone in the population wears a mask, the overall infectiousness of COVID can be reduced by about 15-20 per cent."

Deakin University Professor and Chair in Epidemiology at the School of Health and Social Development Dr Catherine Bennett agrees there's evidence which proves masks reduce COVID transmission rates.

"A US study of close contacts of cases from a year ago found the infection rate in contacts was about 26 per cent if the infected person, their contact, or both were unmasked, but dropped to about 13 per cent if both were masked," she says.

"However, an large population-based study in the UK when Omicron had taken over [in February 2022] did not find a difference in infections rates based on whether masks were worn indoors always, or less frequently.

"But this can also be complicated as those wearing masks might do that because they are at higher risk anyway, and might have had even higher rates of infection without them.

"So the advice remains that wearing masks is still a useful way to reduce your risk of picking up or spreading the virus."

What's the science of mask-wearing?

COVID is primarily transmitted by the respiratory route, meaning that breathing, coughing, speaking, laughing and singing can create particles that contain the virus and can be transmitted, Professor Trauer says.

"We divide respiratory transmission into the transmission with larger and smaller particles.

"Larger particles are called droplets, whereas smaller ones (called aerosols) can travel longer distances because they can be suspended in the air.

"In reality, there is no definite cut-off between these two processes, and both are likely important.

"In 2020, many policymakers and experts were too slow to recognise the importance of the smaller particles.

"We now have several lines of evidence to indicate that the smaller particles are important, even though it's impossible to define this exactly."

Dr Bennett says the finer the mask fibre and the better the fit, the better the mask works.

"This is why N95 masks are recommended, as they can even filter very small aerosol particles," she says.

"Any mask that doesn't fit properly doesn't offer as good level of protection, the air can still pass between the mask and your skin, and fewer virus particles will be filtered out." Continue reading

Heading into term 2, the Government made the controversial call to remove nationwide school mask mandates instead leaving it up to individual schools to make their own rules.

The decision sparked disagreement from the disability rights commissioner and an open letter from 150 doctors asking for the decision to be reversed.

Balmoral School decided to keep masks for staff and students in year 4 and above.

"We've been running at about 90% attendance, we've basically had a normal school term," principal Malcolm Milner​ said.

"We haven't missed a beat. We've had open days and sports. For the children and the community it looks like a normal school - back to what it was in 2019. Continue reading

People who wear face coverings are less likely to spread COVID-19.

Cases of in-school transmission were 72% lower in districts with mandatory masking during the late summer and fall of 2021, compared to those where masks were optional, the study authors reported in Pediatrics.

Researchers tracked cases in nine states for nearly five months — from the end of July through mid-December, when the delta variant was dominant.

The findings were posted online Wednesday, the same day the Philadelphia school system lifted its mask mandate for students and teachers.

Yet masks are still required on planes and public transit until at least April 18, the Transportation Security Administration announced Thursday.

For the study, researchers tracked cases among more than 1.1 million students and 157,000 staff in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Missouri, California, Washington, Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas, and Texas.

The authors found that for every 100 cases of COVID acquired outside the school in a given community, districts where masks were optional saw 26.4 cases of in-school transmission compared with 7.3 cases in districts where masks were required — that is, 72% fewer cases of in-school transmission.

Put another way, that works out to 3.6 times as many infections acquired in schools where masks were not required, compared to those where mandates were in place.

The authors cautioned that they could not prove that masks were entirely responsible for the lower rates of transmission, as the school districts were not chosen at random for implementation of mandates.

Other precautions or demographic characteristics may have played a role in limiting infection, according to the study led by researchers from Duke University School of Medicine.

Yet the findings are consistent with other large studies suggesting that face coverings do indeed reduce the risk of spread.

It's no secret that reported case numbers rose sharply after the period covered in the study, due to the omicron variant, then plunged yet again. Continue reading

The four are in isolation while their contacts are being traced, the Vatican said Monday.

The Swiss Guards provide ceremonial guard duty during papal Masses, man the Vatican gates and help protect the 83-year-old Pope Francis.

The outbreak comes as last Wednesday Italy passed a new law nationwide outdoor mask mandate promising fines of up to 1,000 euros (NZ $1,773) for violators.

Italy's premier Giuseppe Conte says a steady, nine-week rise in infections nationwide demanded new preventive measures to stave off economically-devastating closures and shutdowns.

"We have to be more rigorous because we want to avoid at all cost more restrictive measures for production and social activities," Conte said.

The nationwide move follows the Vatican's Tuesday 6 October announcement that face coverings must be worn within the Vatican City State.

Vatican department head, Bishop Fernando Vérgez, Secretary-General of the Governorate of Vatican City State, said that masks should be worn "in the open air and in all workplaces where distance cannot always be guaranteed."

With Italy and the Vatican State in agreement, Francis, Wednesday, held his general audience inside the Paul VI Hall without wearing a mask.

Most of Francis aides and secretaries also did not wear face masks.

Representatives of the health and security departments who were in the hall for last Wednesday's general audience reacted with disbelief and concern at Francis' behaviour.

On Thursday, Francis also met with external financial inspectors from Moneyval, and photos taken of Francis with the inspectors standing shoulder to shoulder show no one was wearing a mask.

Robert Mickens in La Croix International reports a senior Vatican offical expressing bewilderment at Francis' risky behaviour.

The unnamed official is reported to have said, "I don't get it."

"The 83-year pope, who is visibly overweight and is missing a part of a lung, was not just without a mask at the indoor event.

"On more than just a few instances during his lingering entrance from the back of the hall he was clearly not respecting proper distancing from people in the crowd", writes Mickens.

He describes Francis' refusal to wear a facemask and keep a proper distance from people at this time of pandemic as "extremely troubling".

"Not only is he setting a very bad example for all those who look to him for guidance, but he is also putting his health and that of others in danger", Mickens writes.

Last month, a Vatican official explained Francis finds it difficult to wear a mask that restricts his breathing.

When 21 Francis suffered acute pleurisy, resulting in surgeons removing part of his right lung.

According to a statement from a Vatican official on September 14, the pope is being "constantly monitored" for signs of the coronavirus.

The Italian State face mask decree was passed on the same day that Italy added 3,678 new infections and 31 deaths to its official coronavirus toll.

This is the highest increase in new cases since the peak of the outbreak in April.

Italy has over 36,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, the second-highest number in Europe after Britain.

Source

• The Boston Globe
• La Croix
• Vatican News
• CathNews NZ
• CathNews NZ
• Associated Press
• Image: America Magazine

Although many Catholics seek to use this period as "a time of renewal," as one priest put it, a vocal minority are approaching the pandemic with words more suited to culture warriors than to spiritual warfare.

Any Catholic who has spent time on social media has probably encountered members of the faithful who are deeply suspicious of public health precautions.

They will admit that people who are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 are worthy of special protection. But they resist as overzealous government intrusion any precaution that might impede upon their personal right to celebrate the sacraments.

This mentality of suspicion leads some Catholics to deride those who observe public health precautions as cowards who have capitulated to a spirit of fear.

To support their uncharitable attacks, they point to Jesus' teaching (as in Mt 16:26) that the soul is more valuable than the body.

Some even go so far as to assert that Catholics who refrain from attending public liturgies out of fear of Covid-19 are lukewarm in their faith.

How, then, to respond to those who claim that Catholics who heed health guidance are giving themselves over to an un-Catholic "slavery...by their fear of death" (Heb 2:15)?

I suggest consulting St. Thomas Aquinas. In his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas offers profound observations on fear and the virtue that remedies it, fortitude. Some points he makes are especially relevant to today's debates.

There is no sin in fearing the needless loss of one's life or health.

A sin is by definition an unreasonable act. But, Aquinas says, "reason dictates that we should shun the evils that we cannot withstand, and the endurance of which profits us nothing. Hence there is no sin in fearing them."

The answer to fear is not defiance. It is fortitude.

Our fear should lead us to ask God for an increase in the cardinal virtue of fortitude.

But practicing fortitude does not mean tempting God by being reckless. Rather, Aquinas says, fortitude strengthens us by "curbing fear and moderating daring."

The words of the Serenity Prayer offer an example of fortitude in action: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference." Although the "wisdom to know the difference" comes from the virtue of prudence, which directs the other cardinal virtues, the "serenity to accept the things I cannot change" and "courage to change the things I can" are both aspects of fortitude.

And this brings us to our final point from Aquinas: The principal act of the virtue of fortitude is not aggression. It is endurance.

Sometimes it is necessary to attack our fears head-on. A priest I know faces his fear of Covid-19 so that, taking every reasonable precaution, he may bring the sacraments to patients in hospitals who are dying of the virus.

Aquinas grants there are times when one has no other option than "aggression"—taking bold action against that which causes fear. Even so, he takes care to emphasize that "the principal act of fortitude is endurance, that is to stand immovable in the midst of dangers rather than to attack them."

But St. Thomas does not stop there. Continue reading