Ontario ‘staying the course’ on lifting COVID-19 mask mandate, health minister says

Ontario’s health minister said the provincial government is “staying the course” on its decision to lift the mandatory masking mandate, despite experts saying the province is now experiencing the sixth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Christine Elliott made the remarks during a funding announcement at North York General Hospital on Thursday.

The minister was asked whether there have been talks about potentially reinstating the mandatory mask mandate which was lifted earlier this month.

“We’re staying the course, we don’t anticipate that we’ll need to move back to mandatory masking,” she said. “Except in certain locations where it is mandatory, most of it is discretionary.”

Elliott said people should be “patient” and “kind” with one another, noting that some may feel more comfortable to continue wearing a mask in public settings.

Elliott said the provincial government “knew that the numbers of COVID patients would go up” as the province lifted restrictions saying “there’s really no surprise here.”

She said Ontario’s top doctor Kieran Moore noted there would be a rise in cases on a “number of occasions.”

“But what we have now that we didn’t have before is a highly vaccinated population,” she said. “We also have antivirals and there are other tools that we have that we didn’t have before.”

She said we also have the capability in hospitals, ICUs to “handle any increases.”

“So we will get through this, but again it’s not unexpected, we anticipated that this would happen and we are prepared for it,” she continued.

Elliott said the provincial government will “continue to take a cautious approach” as Ontario continues with its reopening plan.

“And of course we rely on the advice and recommendations of our chief medical officer of health Dr. Moore, and his advisors,” she said.

However, Elliott said “at this point,” it “does not appear necessary to need to take any further precautions.”

“But we’ll continue to follow it, and as Dr. Moore gives us advice we’ll certainly be ready to take it.”

Elliott said if the government needs to take further measures, it will.

“But so far, it doesn’t appear that we need to do that.”

Elliott’s comments come as the province reported 807 people are receiving care in an Ontario hospital with COVID-19. A total of 166 are in an intensive care unit.

Experts have said the province is in the very early stages of a sixth wave of the pandemic.

Data released on March 17 by the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table said the province’s wastewater signal had stopped declining and was increasing slightly. The data also showed the province’s test positivity rate had stopped declining.

by Global News