Throughout the pandemic, we've been told that one of our best defences against COVID is a mask, but one expert warns that cloth masks are useless against Omicron. Yeah, data scientist Jeremy Howard is an honorary professor at the University of Queensland. He's also the author of the world's biggest study on the effectiveness of face masks, and he is urging us to ditch our cloth and surgical masks and instead use N95s.

Jeremy joins us now from Brisbane. Jeremy, it's a pleasure to speak to you. Can you please walk us through why cloth masks are ineffective against Omicron? Yeah, sure thing, Tristan. After that segment, I feel like I should salute. I'm not going to do the chicken dance though. Yeah, look, we're all pretty much nowadays wearing these kind of cloth masks or these kind of surgical masks.

Back in March 2020, actually, we were advising people to use these kinds of masks, partly because that was all that was available. And partly because at that time, they actually worked pretty well. Unfortunately, Omicron is such an airborne virus that they're basically totally useless. I would suggest that the mask mandates we currently have doing nothing at all.

And we all need to be switching to something like this, an N95, or something like this, a KF-94. There's so many of them around the world now. Unfortunately, our government has completely failed us by failing to get supply in time, like everything else, rapid tests, and so forth. But this is not a supply problem.

That's really a policy problem. But this is what we need to actually slow down transmission and get the economy back under control. What's the difference, Jeremy, with the N95 masks? I mean, I've got the two masks here. My Channel 10-issued cloth mask and the new N95, which I've been wearing.

What makes it more effective against Omicron? Yeah, so the first one is with the surgical mask. There's big gaps in the side, right? So when I breathe in, that aerosolized particles, which is like cigarette smoke, which is how it's transmitted, they go straight through the gap. And for cloth masks, it's a similar thing, but the gaps are little micro gaps inside the wave.

So there are a couple of key differences. The first is that you'll see when I put this on, there's no gaps, right? And there's a nice tight fit here. And then the second is that the actual stuff that this is made of, it's called a melt-blown polypropylene. There aren't the gaps for the aerosol to get through.

So they fix the fit problem and the filter problem. And these, they cost like two or three dollars. You can use them as many times as you like until the straps start to fail. And they don't require any kind of special handling or teaching. In hospitals, they do. But in the community, they don't.

They've been well tested for community use many times over, and they still work really pretty well. You know, if we all had one of these, that could actually be enough to stop transmission of this virus. Well, there you go. Look at mine. Mine's already filthy. I've only had it on for an hour this morning, all the makeup.

I wonder, can you wash these, Jeremy? No, don't wash them. That won't work. Just put up with the makeup. You know, it's okay. If you can afford to, you know, get a new one each day, but it's purely a cosmetic thing. There's no medical reason for it. I actually really love these KF-94s that come from Korea.

Look how flat they are. They can slip into your purse or into your pocket. And then, you know, they've got this very strong protective coating. There's so many good options out there now. All right. You've got one for my kid. She's six. Oh, wow. Effective and affordable. Yeah. Appreciate your time, Jeremy.

Thanks for joining us. Yeah, no worries. Take care.