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)

Overwhelmed by COVID : Hanging In

"On the first day I'm inaugurated ... I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask, just 100 days to mask, not forever, 100 days."

"And I think we'll see a significant reduction if we incur that -- if that occurs, with vaccinations and masking, to drive down the numbers considerably."

U.S.President-elect Joe Biden

"For the time being, and the foreseeable future, the demand for vaccines is going to exceed the supply by a lot, even for the highest priority groups that are identified."

Josh Michaud, associate director, global health policy, Kaiser Family Foundation

"Progress on vaccines gives us all a lift and we can now start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, WHO  is concerned that there is a growing perception that the COVID-19 pandemic still has a long way to run and that decisions made by citizens and governments would determine the course in the short run and when the pandemic would ultimately end."

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

 

"Now is not the time to blame one another or point fingers. Now is the time for us to keep working together [with a] difficult [holiday season ahead]."

"Every step of the way our job has not been to direct the provinces or judge the provinces; it has been to be there to support them."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

A child wearing a Santa hat and a face mask looks for a Christmas tree at a farm in Harrowsmith, Ont., on Saturday. (Lars Hagberg/AFP via Getty Images)

Canada's surge of COVID-19 infections surpassed 400,000 cases Friday amidst news that federal officials placed a larger order of prospective vaccines, while releasing refined guidelines on those groups that would be first to receive vaccinations. It took a mere 18 days for the latest 100,000 cases to be notched up, the shortest infection period since March. The 300,000th case of COVID had been reached on November 16. When the coronavirus first reached Canada it took six months to record the first 100,000 cases, four months to reach 200,000, less than a month for 300,000.

 

People wear face masks as they wait to enter a store in Montreal on Saturday. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

 

The national death toll from the coronavirus is 12,470, each death a tragedy. Canada expects 40 million vaccine doses from Moderna in 2021 -- while optioning to obtain more of the two-dose vaccines -- enough to vaccinate close to 20 million people, as a start in its inoculation program. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization instructed first doses be directed to residents and staff of congregate living settings caring for seniors in recognition of the fact that fully 80 percent of the Canadian death toll due to COVID took place in long-term care institutions and retirement homes.

 

Additionally, adults 80 and over living independently should be prioritized, with the age limit decreasing by five-year increments to age 70. Health-care workers, and adults in Indigenous communities where infections can have disproportionate consequences are also among the first groups designated to receive vaccinations. "As a ballpark, these four groups of people as things are rolled out should be covered by the initial doses", stated Canada's chief public health officer, Theresa Tam. Presumably, the next designated group would be adults living with chronic health conditions.

Dr. Joseph Varon comforts a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston. Texas has reported more than 1,220,000 cases, including more than 21,500 deaths. (Go Nakamura/Getty Images)

In the U.S., deaths from the coronavirus set a single-day record with two people dying every minute as over 213,830 new cases and 2,861 deaths were reported on Thursday even while U.S. COVID hospitalizations are also at record levels. Experts project the death toll is set to surpass 3,000 per day. Americans have been urged to voluntarily wear face masks -- in a general atmosphere of lax public discipline. A new national strategy has been promised that will impose mask mandates in federal buildings and control interstate travel.  

Should all go as planned with authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 20 million Americans could be vaccinated before the end of the current year, according to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn. It is expected that the first shipment of millions of coronavirus vaccine will be shared by states and federal agencies, albeit initially falling far short of protecting all high-priority groups, including health-care workers.

WHO's director-general added that the pandemic will be around for quite a while yet, that decisions made by citizens and governments would ultimately determine the course of the virus in the short run, as well as when the pandemic would finally end. Since the start of the pandemic to the present, U.S. cases have surpassed 14 million, with over 100,000 Americans hospitalized. 

 

Close to 539,000 COVID-19 deaths by April 1 has been projected by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, almost doubling the current death toll. On the other hand, should the American public begin wearing face masks in public in the majority within the next short while, an estimated 66,000 lives could be saved, according to the institute's best-case scenario.

 

California’s daily reports of coronavirus cases have tripled in the last month, which could lead to new restrictions in several regions, including Los Angeles.  Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times