Kingston, Ont., declares mask use mandatory at many indoor locations after COVID-19 outbreak

The city of Kingston, Ont., has decided to make mask use mandatory for workers and customers at many indoor public locationsfollowing an outbreak of COVID-19 at a local nail salon.

As of Friday afternoon, there were16confirmed COVID-19 cases involving people who work atBinh's Nails and Spa, visited itor areconnectedto someone who did almost a quarter of the area's total known cases.

Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health declared an outbreak at the west-end salonThursday and closed it until further notice.

On Friday, Medical Officer of Health Dr.Kieran Moore told reporters he'd signed an order requiring mask usage at a wide variety of establishments and public settings, including but not limited to:

• Retail stores, including malls and shopping plazas.
• Grocery stores.
• Restaurants.
• Farmers markets.
• Libraries.
• Church or other "faith settings."
• "Personal service settings" like nail or hair salons.
• Public transportation.

The order, which takes effect when the clock rolls over to Saturday, does not apply to schools or hospitals, or to private businesses not open to the general public.

People with medical conditions that prevent them from using face coverings will be exempt, the health unit said, as will children "chronologically or developmentally" younger than five years old who refuse to wear a face covering and can't be persuaded to.

Establishments thatfail to respect the ordercould be finedup to $5,000.

"We are not blaming any particular business, but we must learn from this," Moore said.

"We believe this isprudent, proportionate to the risk, and it's very reasonable to embrace this now as a lesson learned."

WATCH | Medical Officer of Health Dr.Kieran Moore on the outbreak:

The16 new cases initially reported Friday as 18 but revised downward Friday afternoon would mean thearea has had 79 confirmed cases, just two of them in May and none in June until this week.

The public health agency said Thursday anyone who visited the salon afterJune 12, when it was allowed to reopen under Ontario's Stage 2of lifting restrictions,must get testedand self-isolate until 14 days after their visit.

Moore said he was "saddened" to learn the salon wasn't following two-metre physical distancing rules norcleaning properly between sessions. Whileworkers at the salon were wearing masks, that wasn't always the case with customers, hesaid.

The first confirmed new COVID-19 case involved a health-care worker who visited the salon,developed a fever and chills at work, went homeand got tested, he said.

Other positive cases involve corrections workers, Moore said, although there was no indication the coronavirus had infected anyone in either a health-care or correctional setting.

None of the new cases had any travel history "outside of our community," he added.

A one-daytesting site will be set up Sunday in the parking lot of St. Lawrence College in Kingston from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with priority given to anyone who may have a connection to the salon outbreak.

Mask policies increasingly common

The Kingston health unit is one of a small but growing number of Canadian jurisdictions todeclare mask usage mandatory in most indoor public spaces.

In Ontario, theWindsor-Essex County Health Unit and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health have already implemented such rules around face coverings, while the Montreal suburb ofCte Saint-Lucwill make them mandatory starting July 1.

Some Ontario transit agencieshave declaredmask usagemandatory on buses, streetcars and trains, including Toronto, Hamilton and Guelph.

In Ottawa, thefirst Canadian city to introduce such a policy,passengers have been required to cover their faces since June 15, although for now no fines are being issued.

Dr. David Williams, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said earlier this week those kinds of decisions would be left in the hands of municipalities, rather than implemented provincewide.

'A wake-up call'

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Friday the Kingston outbreak is a concernbutshows the contact-tracing system is working because health officials were able to quickly reach hundreds of contacts.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said the province isn't considering tightening restrictions because of what happened.

Given that Kingston had gone nearly one month without any new COVID-19 cases, the outbreak may be a sign residents have "a little bit of fatigue" when it comes to obeying physical distancing rules, Mayor Bryan Paterson said.

Paterson said about 500 people had visited the salon since it reopenedand roughly 700 people are now in self-isolation. While he said he expected the number of positive cases would keep rising over the coming days, hewas also confident the city would get the outbreakunder control.

"The good news is that we caught it when we did. And so we think that we'll at least be able to prevent it from spreading too far," Paterson told CBC.

"But man, it's really a wake-up call."