Mask Mandates, Mask Choices

People enter and exit a Brooklyn subway station on April 13. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

"We're still running significant excess mortality, which is a stand-in for how severe the problem is."

"But it's certainly much better than it's been for all of the Omicron era to date."

"We're still seeing three times more deaths, and three times the number of hospitalizations than at the best point of the pandemic [late spring/early summer 2021]."

"Atlantic Canada had really taken off by then. And we no longer had much in the way of protections anywhere in the country, so the virus was really ripping through [causing a crisis in hospitals nationwide]."

"[With an] elevated [hazard score], we still recommend that people stay up to date on boosters, and wear N95-type masks in indoor settings outside their household."

Tara Moriarty, infectious diseases researcher, University of Toronto

 

"[Just how many people are still masking]?"

"There are still a few people anxious about infection, for various reasons, but they're very much in the minority."

"[During a recent trip to Rome, Florence and Venice], hardly anyone [was] wearing masks, even at crowded gatherings". 

"Vancouver -- the same; very few masks, even at crowded gatherings."

Dr. Steven Taylor, clinical psychologist, University of British Columbia

"Our species is both so primitive and increasingly tragic."

"They're a measure of protection; they protect against a disease that's known to be fatal or life-threatening for some, and that causes serious illness and/or disability for others."

"Most people want to get as far away from the effects of the pandemic as they can, including that sense of vulnerability that was experienced for so long by so many."

"Seeing someone in a mask pokes at the collective will to deny and avoid those feelings of vulnerability that we all want to be rid of."

"Bullying is essentially an expression of the bully's lack of capacity to manage their own discomfort with what they perceive to be weakness, vulnerability."

"This is one of the reasons we generally view bullying as a cowardly act."

Marnie Wedlake, registered psychotherapist, assistant professor, faculty of health sciences, Western University

Four summers after the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic, most people shunt aside any thoughts of COVID. And in fact, they have reason not to think too deeply about the lingering virus since the COVID situation in Canada appears much improved from the past several years of mass infections and the inevitable fall-out from the sheer numbers of people infected seriously: being hospitalized, placed on limited-access ventilators, many of whom ended up dying from the SARS-CoV-2 viruses' seemingly endless variants, each more infectious than those before.

Reported cases are week-by-week decreasing in numbers or holding steady, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada's latest update. Hospitalizations for COVID infections are falling in number. Mechanically ventilated patients with COVID are vastly reduced in number. Reported deaths on a weekly basis have been decreasing gradually since the turn of the year. Even given the fact that official counts are underestimates, the numbers are steadily decreasing.

Given data being gathered by independent, volunteer number-crunchers investigating the situation, there is a distinct and positive downward trend in infections. Official counts reveal that between June 14 and 20 the number of occupied hospital beds with COVID saw a decrease from 2,054 to 1,908. In late January, in comparison a seven-day period saw over 10,000 people with COVID on average treated in hospitals across the country daily. Additionally, 164 deaths were reported daily, in comparison to 23 deaths over the most recent seven-day reporting period.

 

A person looks at their cellphone while wearing a cloth mask in downtown Vancouver in October 2021. While cloth masks are better than nothing, the latest research suggests N95 respirators and equivalents are more effective. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

The group that Dr. Moriarty represents published a COVID "hazard index", as a calculation based on data from wastewater, health-care system impact and variables of other types. For the week ending July 1, the group placed the hazard index for Canada at 3.7, reduced from 6.2 in mid-May. Since the group began tracking the index last fall, the highest it reached was 10, for the last week of December, 2022. Roughly one in 124 individuals in Canada at the present time are infected, according to Dr. Moriarty.

"It's not hard to pick up Omicron if  your immunity from vaccines and/or previous infections has worn off", she commented. For the entire country, about one in 20 people were infected last July, the highest rate in the pandemic to date. According to Moriarty's team's calculations the COVID risk  is 'elevated' even though the federal government frames it as 'low to moderate'. On social media people who have decided to defend personal masking describe being bullied or harassed.

Increasingly, hospitals and long-term care homes are doing away with their mask mandates even while masks remain strongly recommended by experts, while travelling on public transit. Masks, according to infectious diseases experts, remain prudent most particularly in crowded, poorly ventilated indoor spaces.

People walk in downtown Toronto on April 12. Most public indoor spaces in Canada are now mask-optional, except for health-care facilities and public transit in some regions. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)