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TASMANIAN police issued two large fines to interstate travellers who refused to wear masks at Hobart Airport last week, defying COVID-19 regulations.
My first reaction when I read the ABC report was the two men got what they deserved. And they probably did.
In separate incidents, they had been asked to put a mask on and refused. One claimed he had a medical exemption, but could not provide evidence.
I found myself reflecting, though, on the sneaky jolt of pleasure I had felt at reading about the combined $2300 in fines the men received.
It’s a normal feeling perhaps, but not a particularly edifying one.
Anger at the men’s apparent lack of concern for others may well be justified, but enjoyment of their punishment seems to reflect less admirable qualities. Not quite knitting in front of the guillotine, but not exactly in tune with contemporary ideas about the purpose of punishment in the justice system either.
Our response to punishment of others tends to be conditioned by how much we identify with those being punished.
I may not have empathised with the two travellers to Hobart, but I did feel for the 17-year-old Victorian fined for non-essential travel because her mother gave her a driving lesson earlier in the pandemic (that fine was later withdrawn).
Last week’s parliamentary report into Victoria’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic prompted more questions about the role punishment plays in managing a health crisis.
The report shows striking inequalities in the distribution of COVID-19-related fines in Victoria, with 0.73% per capita of the total number of fines issued between April and September occurring in local government areas with high levels of socio-economic disadvantage, compared with just 0.36% in areas with low levels of disadvantage.
That statistic on its own raises more questions than it answers. Was compliance lower or were there just more fines? Are those areas more intensely policed? Were police in some areas more likely to give a fine rather than a warning? Were changing restrictions adequately communicated, given the large number of residents who do not speak English as a first language in the most-represented suburbs?
The report does not have the answers, though it did make some tentatively worded recommendations that Fines Victoria consider publishing its review of the infringement process and Victoria Police consider releasing deidentified demographic data related to COVID-19 enforcement.
A number of submissions to the inquiry certainly argued policing of COVID-19 restrictions had disproportionately affected vulnerable communities and groups.
Enforcement activities were more likely to cause rifts in the community, rather than act as a deterrent, the Sacred Heart Mission argued, while Liberty Victoria submitted reports of police issuing infringements in an arbitrary and inconsistent manner.
The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service said police should prioritise providing public health messaging and supporting people to comply with the current restrictions.
“Arresting people will not achieve positive outcomes,” its submission said.
More broadly, the parliamentary report also expressed concern the threat of large fines might actually deter people from getting tested or being honest with contact tracers.
Punitive measures may be a necessary part of the response to a crisis like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but they are not an end in themselves.
Their purpose is to protect us. If they’re not doing that, they’ve failed, no matter how much we may enjoy seeing them applied to others.
Transparency around the enforcement of restrictions is essential if we’re to properly assess their impact, and that includes demographic data.
Australia likes to pretend it is a classless society, but it’s in all our interest to make sure that longstanding delusion does not obscure the many intersections between socio-economic disadvantage and areas such as public health and administration of the justice system.
Jane McCredie is a science and health writer based in Sydney.
The statements or opinions expressed in this article reflect the views of the authors and do not represent the official policy of the AMA, the MJA or InSight+ unless so stated.
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Having walked into Hobart airport without a mask on Monday, until vigorously reminded by my wife, my actions were inadvertent not intentional. That was simply the effect of a few days in mask-free Hobart, enjoying the fresh air.
The people who deliberately chose to refuse to obey a lawful order from a police officer are a different category of civil disobedience, along with all the other biosecurity breachers, ‘my banana doesn’t have fruit flies’, ‘my salami doesn’t have foot and mouth disease’, ‘my elephant’s tusk was from an old sick elephant’.
There are many laws with which I disagree, e.g. I am arrogantly confident that I can drive past a school at 60kmh without hitting too many children, but compliance is not a matter for personal choice. As antivaxxers like Pete Evans have found, there is a difference between a discussion in private about one’s beliefs, versus public advocacy of law-breaking.
As to whether it is socioeconomically biased, I informed the NSW Government via their airport check-in app, that last Thursday approximately 40% of passengers in the Qantas lounge were not wearing masks (while not actively eating) despite being reminded by Qantas staff. I await their response.
Dr Greg,
I didn’t qualify Trump’s overrall performance, so I’m not sure what you’re asking.
It is true that he got right one of the few policy actions shown to work, when his opponents at the time all denounced it. There was never any equipment shortage, even in NY where his arch-nemesis Cuomo admitted as such. Testing was a disaster early on, but the CDC explained the issues had nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with CDC procedures along with a failed attempt to develop their own test. Vaccinations – Trump kept reporting that they would come out before the end of 2020 and was mocked for that. He accelerated development and by the time he left had ~1million vaccinations per day, the number that Biden claimed he was aiming for. The US now has a far higher percentage of people vaccinated than most nations (though no country comes close to Israel on this).
Alternatives:
– Mask mandates – no meaningful benefit, according to the known research.
– Lockdowns (four studies now) – no benefit.
Meanwhile, Australians usually fail to understand American federalism — absent martial law, the states hold virtually all of the power over how to handle the pandemic, and for the one disaster zone (NY), it was the governor who guaranteed 30% of the deaths by requiring nursing home to accept back infected patients.
If you want to qualify these as “successful”, then so be it. I am merely stating some basic facts over uninformed opinion.
Randal, perhaps you could enlighten us neophytes as to how Trump’s approach in USA has been “successful”, as he (and perhaps you ) would put it!
As a simple pall care physician, I will continue to put my trust in well-qualified, experienced and sensible public health teams to develop the best and most workable policies on Covid-19.
Correction: the other policy that has been shown to work (with no prior evidence suggesting otherwise) is *early* border shutdown, like what Trump but few other nations did (Australia also one of the exceptions), and which his political opponents and MSM mocked him for.
Addit: Dr. Greg, Modelling is an extremely weak form of evidence. There have been cohort and restrospective studies before this pandemic which not only found no benefit to self from masks wrt flu and SARS, but potential harm, while a possible small benefit to others if worn when one is symptomatic. Thus why masks were not recommended in Western nations before it was discovered that most covid infections were asymptomatic — at which point it was argued there might be benefit for the masses to wear. Further evidence has come out finding no benefit to any but potentially to symptomatic carriers. And here we are today, having all this evidence, but countries doubling down on mandatory mask wearing for all despite there being real risks, from the research itself, that those wearing masks could be increasing their risk of infection, and modelling suggesting that those who are symptomatic could actually be increasing the spread.
What would I do? I would do what has evidence backing it up, and in areas where there is no empirical evidence, I would look at modelling. The old principle of social distancing, education on hygeine, and quarantining the sick and frail, together with contact tracing, is all that the evidence suggests doing.
Sweden is actually a good model — despite stuffing up the quarantining of their nursing homes (just as New York did), they have dropped from 7th worst to 28th for per capita mortality.
Dr Greg, I never stated nor implied that I would ‘wait until an RCT’. Please read more carefully. I said that the only RCT done on masks — as opposed to modelling — says no benefit from them. There *is* a fair amount of scientific evidence on masks, and it says that masks do not help — are you saying that you do not care about RCTs and/or empirical evidence but will simply continue to do what the models say? Or is your argument that it would be wise to fallaciously apply the precautionary principle when one does not understand the evidence?
Modelling is an extremely weak form of evidence. There have been cohort and restrospective studies before this pandemic which not only found no benefit to self from masks wrt flu and SARS, but potential harm, while a possible small benefit to others if worn when one is symptomatic. Thus why masks were not recommended in Western nations before it was discovered that most covid infections were asymptomatic — at which point it was argued there might be benefit for the masses to wear. Further evidence has come out finding no benefit to any but potentially to symptomatic carriers. And here we are today, having all this evidence, but countries doubling down on mandatory mask wearing for all despite there being real risks, from the research itself, that those wearing masks could be increasing their risk of infection, and modelling suggesting that those who are symptomatic could actually be increasing the spread.
-Dr Randal
So what is your solution to the public health issues re Covid-19 Randal et al?
Is all your medical practice only dictated by results of randomised controlled trials?
Do you want to wait for such “gold standard” trials to be in before we act at a public health level?
Should we just resort to the Trumpist laissez-faire approach? “Don’t be afraid of this thing”.
So many arm-chair experts sitting comfortably in front of their computers issuing what I consider is gratuitous “scientific” advice is unhelpful in an area of so many unknowns.
Thank god the children aren’t in charge!
Does Andrew Renaut claims he has not caused bacterial contamination of wounds – but has he transmitted respiratory viruses by operating without a mask while infected, with nose dripping, coughing and sneezing?
I think Andrew’s point wasn’t that bacteria are viruses, but just like the common erroneous assumptions that masks help reduce post-op infection, there is little science behind the public health decisions during this pandemic, INCLUDING requiring masks.
It is most definitely NOT the case that aerosol spread has been found to be the main means of transmission of covid. It is not understood how much of a role it plays.
The evidence for masks to specifically help reduce covid spread is poor, with only slightly better evidence for N95 masks in particular. Evidence for is almost entirely in the form of modelling, and evidence against is empirical (including the only RCT done on the matter). Indeed, there are reasons to be concerned of a potential increased risk of catching covid by wearing one.
Ironically, IF covid’s main means of spreading were by aerosol, which I highly doubt since it would probably mean a contagiousness comparable to that of the other aerosol spreaders (e.g., measles and varicella), then that would completely destroy the modelling evidence supporting 99% of mask use in the public — fabric masks break down droplets, which spread only a couple meters, into aerosols, and would thus be increasing the spread.
Andrew Renault writes; “I am a cancer surgeon and have not worn a mask in the OR in 20 years. Because the evidence regarding their efficacy simply doesn’t exist. The fact that my wound infection rate is no greater than any other surgeon’s tells you everything you need to know…”
Surgical masks are used to prevent nasopharyngeal bacteria from health professionals infecting surgical wounds in the patient. You are quite correct to state that there is little or no scientific evidence that surgical masks reduce the rate of bacterial wound infection post-surgery. However this article is discussing public health responses to a novel viral pandemic, not hygiene in the OR. Given that aerosol transmission is now understood to be the main way the virus is spread from person-to-person, your experience in the OR is irrelevant to a discussion about the efficacy of universal mask wearing and social distancing as means to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The enduring image of the Victorian lock-down in response to the COVID crisis in 2020 will be the arrest by four police officers in her home, in front of her young child, of the pregnant Zoe Buhler.
For a Facebook post.
Whatever instructions they received from their superiors, the event looked like a calculated pursuit of a soft target when juxtaposed with the effete police response to the BLM marchers.
It likely inspired more civil disobedience, and more doubt about government motives than any other action, and remains an enduring disaster for police public relations in Victoria, for which ‘strong policing’ and its attendant fines did indeed seem very selective.
Exactly right Andrew. The lack of science behind any of this is simply lamentable. As doctors we should be asking: “provide us the evidence that validates your strategy”. As scientists we have a duty to critically question important decisions made by politicians and their so called advisors. It is not enough to sit back and blindly accept them.
I am a cancer surgeon and have not worn a mask in the OR in 20 years. Because the evidence regarding their efficacy simply doesn’t exist. The fact that my wound infection rate is no greater than any other surgeon’s tells you everything you need to know.
I pray that one day we will wake up from this madness.
Ms Mercredie
As a science writer shouldn’t you be more interested in the science, or significant lack of it, driving government policy.