You don't have to wear a mask when exercising, and instructions say that it's fine to not wear a mask outside if you're by yourself. You should still carry a mask with you (see above link) however so that it can be donned when you can't social distance anymore/have stopped exercising.
This looks to me like the old version - for example, it still talks about it not being recommended for under 18 (rather than under 12 as the new one), and it says there's no enforcement (technically true for now, but taken with the other point probably shows it's just out of date). I'd prefer it if they'd just made those old recommendations mandatory because I agreed with more of their provisions...
Have been wearing a mask in a physically active retail job for a few weeks with no issues. Idk what kind of heavy breathing people do to make their masks wet? If super concerned about your mask effectiveness, put a new one on at the supermarket, or maybe wear a scarf when walking to the supermarket and change to your surgical mask at the supermarket. The most important thing is that it's providing a physical barrier, and also reminding you to not touch your face. Might be time to switch your behaviours and opt to just walk to the supermarket if concerned about the implications exercise have on the effectiveness of your mask.
I remember early on (e.g. months ago) reading 15 minutes presented as a magic number, but on reflection that was probably about single-layer, bandana type protections and not the multi-layer masks including water-resistant layer we are recommended. I wasn't speaking from personal experience of a mask getting wet. So probably my misunderstanding?
The point of masks is exactly that - it doesn't guarantee your safety, but it's better than nothing, similar to the 1.5m rule.
Even though transmission risk decreases outside when compared to indoor environments, there is still some risk present. Sure, it's a mild inconvenience to wear a mask (especially the exercise thing), but it's much better than wearing none at all. I agree that masks should not be compulsory when exercising, however I think it definitely should remain compulsory in any outdoor environment. The virus can very easily hang around in the air if someone with the virus coughs/sneezes/talks, so wearing a mask can help prevent them from spreading it.
There will always be another risk that can be mitigated, and most such mitigations come with a cost. Speaking purely probabilistically, the overall risk is much more likely to be reduced by mitigating a few significant risks (such as limiting public gatherings, requiring work and education from home where possible) than by mitigating a large number of small risks. And at some stage, the costs of mitigating a risk are going to exceed the potential benefits (though where that stage is is obviously debatable). I also suspect though am not sure that you get better public compliance with the big picture public health items if people don't get bogged down in lots of little details.
One of the things that has really frustrated me about the entire conversation around Covid-19 over the last few months is how frequently this has been ignored. Instead, discussion has often just focused on the cost, and if it is deemed sufficiently low then that's an acceptable sacrifice to demand (whether or not it is actually effective at reducing the public health risk). People who question those restrictions are cast as entitled whingers, sometimes as people who just want to fill our ICUs with patients, overload our health system, and kill people. It's a classic false dichotomy. The running debate about golf courses and fishing over the first lockdown was a good example. Neither of them are my hobbies, but I thought it quite likely that both could easily be practiced with negligible risk, and thus that it didn't matter how low the cost of giving them up was: The cost outweighed the benefit, and it was not reasonable to say that people who wanted to play golf wanted to put people in ICUs (though I think that
was said or at least implied). And, lo and behold, this time round both those activities are permitted because they are now considered low risk. Throw in my repeated comment that I don't think people sufficiently factor in the effect of luck both on where transmission happens and how big a particular spike can grow, and it becomes much more difficult to say what effect each restriction had on the overall outcome.
That's general frustration, not intended as a criticism of you specifically. How it relates, though, is that in my situation I consider my exercise already a low risk activity, performed in a council in the far east with a very low number of (known) active cases, and with route and time chosen to try and minimise meeting other people (for reference, the last three times I have been out for exercise I have seen exactly two people, and had no difficulty distancing from them). As a result, I consider the benefit to the community at large of me wearing a mask while outdoors so vanishingly close to zero that it doesn't matter if the cost to me is low: It still outweighs the benefit, and there is no way reading the previous guidelines that I would even have considered wearing a mask recommended for my outdoor activities (grocery store etc. - yes, I did wear mask). Me working from home and avoiding all public and family gatherings has a far greater reduction in the risk of me both catching and spreading the disease than almost any combination of other measures.
On reflection, though, it's perfectly possible that most people have more contact with others when outdoors than I do...
I'm actually all for wearing facemasks outside the home for the reasons I've outlined above. If the point is to minimise the spread of the virus, then this is a step in the right direction. I'm unaware if Vic/Aus is going for the elimination strategy or the suppression strategy, but either way, wearing face masks will help prevent some of the spread. Especially things like community transmission due to catching COVID from random people as you go about your day.
Brett Sutton has talked about the possibility of elimination, but that has to be a national discussion, and last week it was sounding like both the PM and the NSW Premier didn't think elimination achievable or sensible (personally, I agree with driving it as close to zero as possible, but the wrong combination of human error and bad luck means I'm not sure elimination is ever 100% possible. Some of what people talk about as "elimination" sounds to me more like "aggressive suppression"). In practical terms, though, I don't think we're going to want to keep the Vic/NSW border closed longer than we can help, so I can't see us going for elimination unless they do. And their current restrictions seem to allow much larger gatherings than we were allowing at the end of June...
No hat no play? No mask no play - end of story.
I agree with Dan Andrews today that making masks mandatory is not a human rights issue (so long as there are appropriate exemptions for medical reasons, which there are). At the same time, the rules are put in place to achieve a specific purpose, and the restrictions should be proportionate to the benefits gained. Doesn't mean I won't follow the rules, just that I question their effectiveness in certain situations.
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