LETTER: New Covid mask rules raise many questions

It was disappointing that the government stopped short of removing mask mandates entirely, although that was to be expected. There are many questions to be asked in response to this. At what point exactly will the government (and whoever from the scientific and medical community is advising it) be satisfied that indoor mask-wearing can be done away with? What is the specific objective for continued mask-wearing considering that Covid-19 is becoming endemic? Must the pandemic be "over"?

If we have already transitioned from the pandemic phase to the endemic phase, is government expecting the disease to vanish entirely? Or is it waiting for an even milder variant than Omicron? Are we waiting for a specific percentage of the population to get vaccinated, when clearly most of those who remain unvaccinated have deliberately chosen not to do so?

In typical SA government fashion, the public is left completely in the dark as to what specific criteria, objectives and conditions have been considered and agreed upon before indoor mask mandates are ended. Either way, I sense that the goodwill and continued co-operation of long-suffering SA citizens is waning, and in the absence of a convincing argument to support compliance with these mandates these will become increasingly difficult to enforce.

Society needs to stand up and loudly voice our opposition to these oppressive regulations, which no longer have the backing of science and thus have been abandoned by most sensible countries around the world.

Mark Khoury
Via email

JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.​