The head of the Ontario Pandemic Expert Advisory Board says that while key indicators suggest that COVID-19 in the province is improving, he would have liked all remaining mask mandates in high risk put for a while longer.
On Wednesday, the province’s medical director of health announced that most mandatory mask rules will expire on Saturday, including traffic and hospitals. Masks will still be needed at long-term care homes and Ontario nursing homes after Saturday.
Dr. Fahad Razak, the new scientific director of Ontario’s COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board, told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning that the provincial requirement could have been extended for at least four more weeks to help ease some of the pressure on hospitals that will now have to enforce their own mask rules.
“I am glad to see that many hospitals have already announced that they will continue to require them,” Razak said on Thursday. “I suspect you’ll see that most institutions will require it.”
Razak, who is also an internist at Unity Health Toronto, said that while key indicators such as wastewater data, positivity rate, hospitalizations and ICU numbers suggest that the situation of COVID-19 province is improving, there is still a lot of pressure on hospitals with sick or burned staff.
The extension of the mask rules would have continued to provide an “additional buffer” of protection, he said.
Razak said that while many health experts wanted the mandates to be extended, the decision to lift them was primarily a “trial” of the province.
“This decision had to be made at some point … I have to fully acknowledge that there is no exact number with which you can hang the hat,” he said.
“It’s impossible for anyone to say that today or tomorrow is exactly the right day.”
Masks are “highly recommended” in some environments
Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s medical director of health, said Wednesday he made the decision based on high vaccination rates and improvements in the COVID-19 provincial situation.
Provincial masking requirements in areas such as public transportation, health care facilities, long-term care homes, and retirement homes initially expired on April 27, but that deadline was extended earlier this year to on June 11th.
“The province will continue to monitor any significant changes, including new variants of concern, to ensure that we are adapting our response to protect the health and safety of all Ontarians,” he said.
Rules requiring people to wear masks on public transportation and in most health care facilities will expire at 12 noon on Saturday. Mask requirements were lifted in most other environments in March, along with essentially all other public health measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19 in the province.
Masks are still “highly recommended” in high-risk congregation settings, such as group homes and shelters, his statement said.
Hospital networks to continue the masking policy
The province has said that organizations can make their own mask policies and that people should continue to mask themselves if they are at high risk for the disease, are recovering from COVID-19, have symptoms or have been in contact with someone who has the disease.
The guidelines on mask requirements for health workers will also expire on Saturday and will be replaced by guidelines from the Ministry of Health that describe when masks should be worn to hospitals and other health workplaces.
The guidelines on mask requirements for health workers will expire on Saturday and will be replaced by guidelines from the Ministry of Health that describe when masks should be worn to hospitals and other health workplaces. (Evan Mitsui / CBC)
Some hospitals, such as the Toronto University Health Network and the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, said Wednesday they would maintain masking policies.
Meanwhile, the Toronto Traffic Commission, which operates public transportation in Ontario’s most populous city, said the masks would remain mandatory for staff and customers of its Wheel-Trans accessible traffic service, and strongly recommend for those who use the wider system.
10 more deaths, 549 hospitalizations reported
Meanwhile, Ontario reported 549 hospitalizations for COVID-19 and 10 more deaths on Thursday.
Hospitalizations reported on Thursday rose from 522 on Wednesday to 670 on the same day last week.
According to the Ministry of Health, 42% of those admitted were admitted specifically for the virus, while the rest were admitted for other reasons and then tested positive.
Of those hospitalized, 118 required intensive care, slightly more than 114 on Tuesday, but below 119 this time last week. Forty-four patients need the help of ventilators to breathe.
About 64% of people in intensive care units were admitted due to the virus, while the rest were admitted for other reasons and then tested positive.
Meanwhile, the province reported at least 907 new daily cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, with 9,777 tests completed in the past 24 hours. However, due to the limitations of the evidence, officials say the actual number of new daily cases is likely to be much higher than reported.
The province-wide test positivity rate is 6.6 percent.
New deaths reported on Thursday put the number of deaths in the province’s pandemic at 13,314.