'Totally inappropriate' to lift mask mandates at this time, retired Sudbury doctor says

A retired intensive care physician in Sudbury said the province's plan to fully remove its mask mandates later this month is making him "quite uneasy."

On Wednesday, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, announced that the province will scrap mask mandates including in schools, restaurants and stores on March 21. The remaining COVID-19 restrictions will be lifted by the end of April.

"We're going to move forward cautiously. And if someone wants to keep [a mask] on? God bless them, you know? Good. Good for them," Premier Doug Ford said.

"But I know a lot of people don't want to keep them on. And again, we aren't leading the way in this. We're kind of middle of the pack."

Dr. Peter Zalan is a retired intensive care physician in Sudbury. He pointed outsaid only 54 per cent of children age five to 11 have been vaccinated with one dose.

"This is kind of scary because children are the main transmitters of infection," he said.

"They personally don't get very sick, but then they bring it home to their parents and then into their grandparents. And only 58 percent of individuals aged 18 and older have received a booster, which is the third vaccine."

He said he doesn't think restrictions should be lifted in this region. Zalan pointed to hospitalizations, stating last week the head of Health Sciences North in Sudbury reported record COVID admissions.

"The numbers really haven't improved," he said.

"So certainly for this part of the province, it's totally inappropriate."

'Continue with masking in general'

Dr. Penny Sutcliffe, the medical officer of health for Public Health Sudbury and Districts, said she'snot surprised that the masking mandate is being removed.

"This isn't an on and off switch in terms of the pandemic. The pandemic is still here," she said.

"We're seeing a gradual shift to a new phase of this pandemic where in the control measures, the protections that we take are more based on an individual's assessment of their risk versus government policy and direction.

Sutcliffe said she is not considering putting additional measures in place in Sudbury.

"Overall my recommendation is to continue with masking in general, not just for specific settings, but that a personal assessment should be done," she said.

"Masks are effective for both protecting the individual who is wearing the mask but also for protecting others who might be around that individual who may be infectious."

'Not based on science'

COVID-19 biostatistician Ryan Imgrund said he thinks PCR testing should be accessible to everyone before the mask mandate is lifted. Late last year, the province changed the eligibility requirement for testing to only those connected to high-risk settings such as hospitals or long-term care facilities.

"Dr. Moore expressed the importance of doing a personal risk assessment. He even said himself that he will continue to mask because he's done the risk assessment," Imgrund said.

"It's impossible to do a proper risk assessment if we don't know how many cases of COVID-19 there actually are here in Ontario, and that's information which we simply do not have and we will not have even when the mask mandates are actually lifted."

Imgrund said changing the restrictions now doesn't make sense.

"This plan is absolutely not based on science," he said.

"Positivity when masks were introduced was 0.8 per cent. Now, it's 11.2 per cent. We are worse than when masks were introduced."

Dr. Peter Juni, the head of Ontario's COVID-19 science advisory table, said "it's too early to tell" if removing mask mandates is the right move at this time.

"It's not supported by science right now because it's just too early," he said.

"We would need at least one to two weeks' more data to say 'okay, we're stable' and we just make it to the next step."