Mask mandates could be gone by April

Jeff Green | Feb 23, 2022

With the passing of the Omicron wave, most of the restrictions in indoor and outdoor spaces in Ontario are set to be eliminated on March 1, including the vaccine requirement for dining at restaurants and at indoor events.

But the masking requirements will remain in place, for now.

At a media briefing last Friday (November 18), Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington's (KFL&A) Medical Officer of Health Dr. Piotr Oglaza was asked when masks may fade into the COVID past along with vaccine passports.

“Keeping in mind that these are provincial decisions and I have no information from the province regarding their plans, from my perspective as a public health physician, we see an increased risk of transmission during the respiratory season that typically ends in April. Beyond that the risk of respiratory risk is lower.”

He added later that the way the Omicron wave has progressed “dovetails nicely with that seasonal pattern.”

The masking requirement in indoor settings, and outdoor settings when maintaining 2 metre distancing is not possible, came into force in KFL&A since late June of 2020. The provincial mandate followed a few weeks later, and has been in place ever since.

When asked how the vulnerable population may fare once the mask mandate is gone, and Dr. Oglaza said that the “guidance from public health, even pre-dating COVID, was for people experiencing symptoms of upper respiratory illness to refrain from attending settings where vulnerable people are located, such as long-term care facilities.”

He also said that he does not expect that there will be another Omicron wave, “given the pattern of transmission it has followed, but what we do not know, of course, is whether a new variant will take its place and what that new variant would look like.”

Because of the long weekend, the KFL&A Public Health COVID dashboard had not been updated since February 18 when the Frontenac News went to press this week, but at that time, the number of COVID patients in hospital in the region had dropped to 8, with 1 person in the ICU, and they were being ventilated. The number of active cases among at risk individuals was still relatively high, at 324, and the positive testing rate was over 11% for the population that is being tested.

Dr. Oglaza said that the region continues to have some of the lowest case rate data in the province, and has a vaccination rate that is above the provincial average among all age groups.

Over 2/3 of residents over 18 have had a booster shot, and booster eligibility has just been extended to those who are between 12 and 17, and 92.5% of residents over 5 years old have now had at least one dose of vaccine.

Even among the age groups that were the slowest to seek vaccination when it became available, those between 20 and 40, the first dose rate is over 90% and well over 85% have taken a second dose.