World Health Organization adviser says big sporting crowds should be banned

A leading adviser to the World Health Organization has called for large sporting crowds to be banned while the Coronavirus pandemic continues and for indoor masks to mandated by Australia’s governments.

Infectious disease clinician Professor Dale Fisher of the National University of Singapore, who Chairs the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, was reported by The Age as saying infectious diseases experts are frustrated by “wild swings” between severe measures during outbreaks followed by minimal and decreasing restrictions when no local cases are being detected.

The Australian born infectious disease clinician, who has been resident in Singapore since 2003, said politicians needed to stop pretending there’s “no pandemic going on” in between clusters and make some unpopular decisions, instead of bouncing between acting as if there was little threat from the disease and an “imminent catastrophe”.

Professor Fisher said governments needed to ban all large public gatherings, including sporting crowds, until the end of pandemic adding that Australian governments should mandate masks for all indoor settings outside the home, instead of constantly chopping and changing the rules.

Professor Adam Kamradt-Scott of the University of Sydney, another expert in the spread and control of infectious diseases, was also reported as saying Australia should play sporting events without crowds until a higher level of vaccination was achieved.

Professor Kamradt-Scott, the incoming Chair of Global Public Health at the European University Institute said while it might make sense from a public health perspective to deem sporting events non-essential, others could make the argument that they were because they kept spirits high.

He noted “I understand for other people, including our Prime Minister, it is a very big thing.”

Professor Kamradt-Scott suspects Australian governments have been continually dropping and re-instating restrictions because of the worry people may resist longer-term measures, but also because they are trying to achieve a sense of getting “back to normal”, adding “the problem is that you create these expectations that these are exceptional measures.”

Professor Fisher said if Australian governments continued to wind back COVID-19 restrictions to the bare minimum, there would continue to be the risk that a small misstep by individual members of the public could have enormous consequences.

He concluded “you … get this cycle of an almost innocent mistake causing an imminent catastrophe that causes all the hardship, and then it’s eradicated and you can go back to normal again, until the next regular member of society causes a breach.”