Strathcona County makes mandatory masking dependent on case count

Strathcona County is deviating from bylaws passed by two of itsmunicipal neighbours by making its new mandatory mask policy conditional on the number of active cases of COVID-19.

Under a bylaw passed by Strathcona County council Thursday, masks will be mandatory inside indoor public places like stores, malls and places of worship only if themunicipality has at least 25 active cases of COVID-19.

Edmonton's mandatory mask bylaw came into effect Aug. 1. St. Albert's bylaw starts Saturday. Neither bylaw is dependent upon how many active cases are in the community.

The Strathcona County bylaw comes into effect Aug. 17. The county had nine active cases on Thursday.

• Masks mandatory in all Edmonton indoor public spaces starting Aug. 1

Masks are already required inside county buildings, libraries and buses. Mayor Rod Frank originally proposed a trigger point of 50 cases but it was amended to 25 during the debate after some councillors said it was too high.

"I'm going to reluctantly support this because I want to see some reasonable threshold be reached before we mask," Frank said.

He had earlier argued that Strathcona County didn't have the case numbers of larger centres like Edmonton and Calgary, and that the bylaw balanced personal freedom andpublic health.

The United Conservative government has so far refused to enact a province-wide mask policy, leaving the decisions up to municipalities.

Strathcona County intends to send a letter to Premier Jason Kenney and Health Minister Tyler Shandro asking for them to reconsider.

In addition to Edmonton, St. Albert and Strathcona County, mandatory indoor masking bylaws have been passed by councils in Canmore, Banff, Jasper and Calgary.

Banff and Jasper requiremandatory masking on the busier sidewalks within their townsites.

Under a bylaw passed by Fort Saskatchewan council, mandatory masking will only come into effect when there are 10 active cases of COVID-19.

A masking bylaw in Cochrane is also dependent on there being 10 cases within the community.