Residents across Simcoe Muskoka may soon be able to ditch the mask as the province’s top health official announced the mandate’s end was coming.
It’s a move Simcoe Muskoka’s chief medical officer of health feels is too soon.
“We should be continuing with mask use,” said Dr. Charles Gardner, Simcoe Muskoka’s medical officer of health, during a COVID-19 briefing on Wednesday.
“I don’t believe that doing so in the month of March would be the safest thing to do for the public with the amount of transmission we have,” Gardner noted.
Earlier this week, Dr. Sohail Gandhi said that while he supports easing further restrictions, he also feels mask mandates should remain in place for a while longer.
“Because COVID is an airborne virus and is transmitted through the air,” the former president of the Ontario Medical Association explained. “I don’t know that in a few weeks, we will be ready or not. We’ll have to see then, but I certainly don’t think we’re ready today.”
“The pandemic is not over,” stated Dr. Gardner.
“We still very much have ongoing transmission, and at fairly high levels, in the province and in Simcoe Muskoka,” he noted.
“Undoubtedly, as we move away from protective measures, the risk for individuals contracting COVID goes up.”
Still, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health said he’s confident that it would soon be time to lift the mask mandate despite modeling suggesting a new COVID-19 variant will become dominant by mid-March.
Dr. Kieran Moore said the trends “look so good” that the province anticipates ditching mask mandates by the end of March.