Adelaide epidemiologist and biostatistician Adrian Esterman isn't usually inclined to quote dictators.
But such is his concern about what he regards as an entrenched complacency for COVID-19 that he recently felt compelled to cite a chilling statement in the hope of giving pause for thought.
"Joseph Stalin is reported to have said, 'A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic'," the University of South Australia professor tweeted.
"It is very easy to become complacent when reporting daily deaths from COVID. Each one is a grieving family."
The comment generated a considerable reaction — more than 500 retweets and dozens of sympathetic responses.
"I've got a lot of followers and … I quote death statistics every single day," Professor Esterman said.
Throughout the pandemic, Professor Esterman has been a vocal proponent of public control measures, including face masks.
But as a user of public transport — one of the few remaining settings in SA in which masks are mandatory — he's observed low levels of compliance.
"The only public transport I catch is the tram, and yes, I have noticed it," he said.
"Wearing a face mask can protect you, but far more importantly … wearing a face mask is doing the right thing — it's a community thing.
"I'd love to see face masks with that printed across them: 'I'm protecting others'."
His concerns have been widely echoed on social media, where there is an abundance of anecdotal reports of mask requirements being ignored on Adelaide buses, trains and trams.
"I have never seen anyone questioned on the buses I catch and every day there are many people not wearing masks," another wrote on Facebook.
Adelaide Metro investigating compliance
SA Transport Action group chair John Hill said he had only noticed "a very high level of compliance" among the mostly older passengers on the Adelaide Hills buses he caught.
But he said he was aware that is not the case in other parts of the city.
"It's an issue of caring for your fellow [commuters]," he said.
"It is a very confined space — you're next to people, you don't know who they are [or] whether they've got any severe disabilities."
In a statement, SA Health — which is responsible for compliance — said it took an "educational approach" to the issue.
"We are actively promoting mask wearing across the community, and encourage the South Australian community to take personal responsibility to protect themselves and others by wearing a mask when required," SA Health said.
The Department for Infrastructure and Transport added that it was aware of the non-compliance problem, and was investigating ways to fix it.
"Although drivers may remind customers to put a mask on or to wear it correctly, they are not required to enforce this SA Health mandate," the spokesperson said.
Mandate not being 'actively' considered
Some experts believe that, instead of retaining them in only limited settings, it would be easier if mask mandates were reintroduced more broadly.
"There's a certain percentage of the population that's really anti-masks," Australian Medical Association vice-president Chris Moy told ABC Radio Adelaide.
"[But] masks are a very-low-inconvenience strategy with a really high impact in terms of slowing it down."
However, Premier Peter Malinauskas said not only was such a step unlikely, but it would only be taken with "an extraordinary degree of reluctance".
"I think we're at a different stage of the pandemic than where we were some time ago — we haven't got an elimination strategy as a country anymore," he said.
"The idea of reintroducing mask mandates or additional restrictions is not something we are actively considering, and it's not something I want to see occur."
