Controversies Surrounding Mask Use
Participants:
A/Prof. Tari Turner
Associate Professor Tari Turner is Director Evidence and Methods, National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, developing living guidance for COVID-19 infection prevention and treatment, and an Associate Professor (Research) at Cochrane Australia.
Tari leads research developing and evaluating methods for living evidence syntheses, including living systematic reviews and living guidelines; and translating synthesised evidence into improved healthcare practice and policy.
Tari’s passion is supporting evidence-based decision-making to ensure the best possible outcomes, particularly for women and children in low resource settings. She enjoys designing, finding, synthesising and communicating research, and she loves seeing research actually make a difference.
Tari is Co-Editor in Chief of Health Research Policy and Systems, a BMC journal published in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), and a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group to the WHO Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research.
Distinguished Professor Lidia Morawska
Lidia Morawska is Distinguished Professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, and the Director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at QUT, which is a Collaborating Centre of the WHO. Lidia also holds a position of Vice-Chancellor Fellow, Global Centre for Clean Air Research, University of Surrey, UK. She conducts fundamental and applied research in the interdisciplinary field of air quality and its impact on human health and the environment, with a specific focus on science of airborne particulate matter. She is a physicist and received her doctorate at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland for research on radon and its progeny. An author of over 850 journal papers, book chapters and refereed conference papers, Lidia has been involved at the executive level with a number of national and international professional bodies, is a member of the Australian Academy of Science and a recipient of numerous scientific awards.
Jane Whitelaw
Jane Whitelaw is a Certified Occupational Hygienist, Certified Industrial Hygienist and Fellow of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists. She is an expert in Respiratory Protection with current research grants & recent publications investigating the efficiency of respirators against airborne particles. Ms Whitelaw is member of the Australian Standards Committee SF10 publishing AS/NZS 1715 &1716 on Respiratory Protection (Design and Use); and RESP-FIT Board Member and accreditation assessor. As a PhD candidate in UOW’s School of Medicine, Jane is investigating the “Physiological Effects of Respirator use”. Further to this, she is the Coordinator of the National and Internationally Accredited UOW Occupational Hygiene Academic Program and OHS Academic program Director at the University of Wollongong.
Dr John Ferguson
Dr John Ferguson is a Microbiologist and Infectious Diseases Physician with Hunter New England Health and a conjoint associate professor with the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. His interests include healthcare-associated infection control and antimicrobial resistance and stewardship. He is a current member of the Commonwealth Infection Control Expert Group and member of the Healthcare-associated Infection Advisory Committee at the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare. He is co-chair of the National COVID-19 Evidence Taskforce Infection Prevention and Control evidence panel. He was on the Writing Group for the Australian National Antibiotic Guidelines for 12 years. His research interests include healthcare-associated urinary tract infection, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococcus epidemiology and control, analysis of the relationship between antibiotic use and bacterial resistance and neonatal infections.
Maureen Canning
Maureen Canning has been an infection control consultant since 2003 with 13 years’ experience managing infection control programs at 2 health services in metro Melbourne. Her current role is Operations Manager for Infection Prevention at Western Health overseeing 5 hospitals within the organisation. Maureen started at Western Health in September 2019 and was seconded into the organisation’s COVID Preparedness team in January 2021 as the ICP Lead for 6 months to provide core risk mitigation guidance and organisational consultation, development of COVID guidelines, PPE training, ICP lead on the PPE Core Group and Clinical Taskforce, PPE innovation, maintaining all of the infection prevention guidance, posters and training resources on the Western Coronavirus microsite, review of different methodologies for P2 respirators and gowns disinfection with a trial of Chlorine dioxide gas disinfection for long sleeved gowns. Western Health was one of the hardest hit organisations during 2020 with the northwest of Melbourne the epicentre for the Victorian 2nd wave.
Maureen is a current ACIPC Practice Guidance Committee member and was a member of Safer Care Victoria Infection Clinical Network – IV device working group for 12 months developing a peripheral intravenous cannulation bundle.