Ontario will lift most of the remaining mask warrants on Saturday, including hospitals and public transportation.
Mandates will expire at 12 noon on June 11, but masking will remain mandatory in long-term care homes and retirement homes, the province’s medical director of health said in a statement on Wednesday. of press.
Dr. Kieran Moore said the situation with COVID-19 in Ontario, with the help of high vaccination rates, continues to improve.
Masks are still recommended in high-risk congregated living environments, such as shelters and group homes, he said.
“As long as masking requirements expire, organizations can implement their own policies,” Moore said in the statement.
The University of Toronto Health Network, for example, said after the announcement that a mask mandate will be maintained in its hospitals, which includes the Princess Margaret Cancer Care Center, Toronto General Hospitals and Western Hospitals. of Toronto.
“We have some of the province’s most immunocompromised patients and patients, their essential care providers and staff are grateful for the masking,” UHN said in an email.
“Ontarians should continue to wear a mask if they think it is right for them, are at high risk for serious illness, are recovering from COVID-19, have symptoms of the virus, or are in close contact with someone with COVID-19. “.
Moore said the province will also repeal the directives for workers and health care organizations and replace them with guidelines on Saturday.
“This includes guidance on when to wear masks in hospitals and other healthcare settings,” he said.
Moore said the province will continue to monitor new variants of concern.
The TTC strongly recommends that motorcyclists continue to wear masks while in vehicles or at stations. (Evan Mitsui / CBC)
TTC urges motorists to continue wearing masks
Meanwhile, the Toronto Traffic Commission said Wednesday it strongly recommends that motorcyclists continue to wear masks while in vehicles or at stations. Masks will continue to be mandatory for drivers and employees using Wheel-Trans, the TTC service for people with disabilities.
“While the end of the provincial mask mandate is a sign that we are returning to normal cautiously and gradually, we know that COVID-19 has not disappeared and we still strongly recommend the continued use of masks in the TTC,” he said. Jaye Robinson, President of the TTC. he said in a press release.
“Wearing a mask is a small step we can all take to help keep our communities safe.”
The TTC was one of the first traffic agencies in Ontario to make masks mandatory for users and employees in July 2020. The province made masking traffic mandatory in October of the same year. year.
Doctors say mask mandates need to be expanded
Infectious disease expert Colin Furness said the province has no real science-based plan and that mask mandates should be extended to high-risk environments. These environments should include schools because they are high risk environments.
“If we remove the mask requirements for public transportation, we will see an increase in cases,” Furness said Wednesday.
“There is no doubt that we will. We will also exclude many people from fast transport if there is a very high risk.”
In hospitals, he said there is already a “terrible pattern” of people being admitted for something other than COVID-19 and then testing positive.
Removing mask mandates in high-risk environments will make the situation worse, he said. He added that it is important to remember that cases are going down, but going down is not the same as a low figure. COVID-19 is making a significant number of people sick every day, he said.
“COVID is not a cold. COVID is a very invasive virus from the toes to the testicles to the brain. We now have evidence that it can live in your body for months. Long COVID has to do with brain damage. We can also see autoimmune disease and pretty serious vascular disease, “he said.
“You don’t want to take COVID. You really don’t. And if all we have to do is join together during periods when the transmission seems to be high, to do something very simple like put on a mask, we can avoid some “I think we need to take the threat seriously. It’s not a cold. It’s much worse.”
Furness said the province is not making these decisions based on COVID-19 benchmarks, such as wastewater monitoring data, and that the decisions are not transparent.
“We are not driven by science. If we did, it would be very easy to set goals,” he said.
Dr. Fahad Razak, the new scientific director of Ontario’s COVID-19 scientific advisory board, says the province should extend mask mandates in all high-risk environments for about four weeks. then re-evaluate them. (DrFahadRazak / Twitter)
Dr. Fahad Razak, the new scientific director of Ontario’s COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board, said the province should extend mask mandates in all high-risk environments for about four weeks and then return. to evaluate them.
“Some of our public transport is completely stuck in the cheek, and if you have a warm climate, the windows are closed, a lot of people very close together, it can be unsafe for some people,” he said.
COVID-19 hospitalizations fell slightly
The announcement came after Ontario reported 522 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Wednesday and 11 more deaths.
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.
Wednesday’s reported hospitalizations have dropped slightly from 526 on Tuesday and 722 on the same day last week.
According to the Ontario Ministry of Health, 41% of those hospitalized were admitted specifically for the virus, while the rest were admitted for other reasons and then tested positive.
Of those hospitalized, 114 required intensive care, the same as on Tuesday, but below 127 at this time last week. Fifty-four patients need the help of ventilators to breathe.
About 69 percent of people in intensive care units were admitted because of the virus, while the rest were admitted for other reasons and then tested positive.
Meanwhile, the province reported at least 1,013 new daily cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, with 8,291 tests performed in the last 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 6.4 percent.
New deaths reported on Wednesday put the number of deaths in the province’s pandemic at 13,304.