Infectious diseases expert shoots down ‘tricky’ demand from business lobby groups

Three of Victoria’s key business lobby groups are calling for the state’s hospitality and retail workers to be unmasked.

Under current restrictions, hundreds of thousands of workers must wear masks, while customers are not required to do so.

The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Retailers Association and the Australian Hotels Association have banded together to call for the mask mandate to be ditched to relieve pressure on the short-staffed sectors.

But director of infectious diseases at Mater Health Services, Paul Griffin, says it’s not the time to be removing mask rules.

“The timing right now is a little bit tricky to remove them,” he told Ross and Russel.

“I think we perhaps could have a few weeks ago. Right now it might be good just to wait a few more days or a week or two just to see what happens with BA.2.”

The R number in many parts of Australia has risen above one in recent days, which means COVID-19 case numbers are likely to keep going up as the new subvariant spreads.

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