POLL | Will you still wear a mask in public if government scraps the regulation?

As South Africans eagerly await an announcement on amended Covid-19 regulations, conversations have turned to whether South Africans will continue to wear masks in public if not compelled to do so by law.

This week DA and UDM leaders John Steenhuisen and Bantu Holomisa were vocal about the need to scrap mask-wearing.

Steenhuisen said wearing masks should be reserved for high-risk areas such as oncology wards in hospitals. He said this regulation was disruptive in schools as it prevented effective teaching and learning.

“Like other countries, we need to licence cheap rapid tests for home use so people can judge for themselves if they pose a risk to the vulnerable. It makes no sense to limit these to medical supervision.

“Like other countries, masks should only be mandated in high-risk contexts, such as oncology wards,” he said. 

On Sunday, Holomisa said it's time for masks to "fall".

Epidemiologist and former chairperson of the Covid-19 ministerial advisory committee Prof Salim Abdool Karim said SA is ready to lift regulations on mask-wearing outdoors.

“I don’t know what government’s plans are on wearing masks, but what we’ve seen from other countries is that we have reached a stage where we can change our overall strategy. We can remove most of our restrictions and public health measures at this point,” he told eNCA.

“For example, we can get away from all the sanitising, we can drop our outdoor mask-wearing mandate but we will probably need to keep other things.”

Last week health minister Joe Phaahla said government stakeholders were deliberating new regulations to replace the national state of disaster when it is scrapped.

The state of disaster is in place until March 15. It was initially implemented in March 2020 to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.