Image of an ambulance arriving at the ER, text says

Want to keep track of our work? Sign up for PoP BC updates, actions, public health information, and announcements.

Open Letter calling on Premier Eby, Ministers Dix and Whiteside to reinstate universal masking immediately

Share This

Protect our Province BC, Safe Schools Coalition BC, BC School Covid Tracker, and Masks 4 East Van call on BC’s new Premier, David Eby, Health Minister Adrian Dix, and Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside to immediately require universal masking in all indoor public spaces, including schools. 

With masking, fewer British Columbians will get sick, helping to “flatten the curve”, and reduce the impact on our already strained hospitals and overburdened healthcare staff. We are also calling for a public education campaign explaining why masks are an effective tool against respiratory infections with emphasis on the importance of mask fit and better filtration-grade respirators. Government must make these available to all BC residents.

Children’s hospitals around the country are in a dire state, with a triple surge of RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), influenza, and COVID-19 sending more children to the hospital with respiratory distress than seen previously, despite having fewer cases of RSV than at the same time last year. Ottawa’s Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) has run out of pediatric ICU beds and needed to open a second unit. Currently, in Ontario, there are no pediatric ICU beds available.

We can expect the same to be happening in BC. Already, in early November, with an increase of 20% more patients, BC Children’s Hospital set up its Emergency Operations Centre, children’s cardiac surgeries are now being canceled, and a BC surgeon has reported that “previously healthy kids need life support for common cold viruses”. 

On November 10, 2022, Dr. Teresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Medical Officer, warned that Canada is facing a triple threat, and recommended Influenza and COVID vaccinations along with mask-wearing to prevent getting sick.

Why universal masking is essential: 

  1. A universal masking order sends the message to the public that the current epidemic situation is serious and warrants taking action. Recent polling shows that the majority, or 72% of British Columbians, approve the reintroduction of a mask mandate by Public Health. Recommendations are not enough. BC has had a recommendation to wear masks in public spaces since March 2022, and since then, mask-wearing by the public has dropped dramatically.
  2. Multiple studies prove that universal mask protections result in less illness. The latest one, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, compares school districts in Massachusetts that kept mask rules in place until June 2022, despite a state-wide rescinding of the mask order  in February. The study showed that those districts that maintained universal masking had significantly less COVID cases among students and staff compared to the school districts that lifted mask requirements.
  3. Our goal should be limiting children’s learning loss by keeping students healthy and able to attend school. Currently students’ absentee rates in BC schools are rising. Staff shortages are common. The Massachusetts study highlights that universal masking results in less COVID-related missed school days for both students and staff.
  4. Specific ventilation data in BC’s classrooms is absent, including publicly-available carbon dioxide monitoring to prove that sufficient fresh air is being introduced into classrooms while occupied. Also, HEPA filtration units have not been provided in most BC classrooms. Without all these measures in place, masks are currently the only sure way to limit the amount of virus in the air that school children and educators breathe.
  5. Masks, especially respirators like KN95 and N95, help by filtering out viruses before they are exhaled into the air, and also protect wearers from breathing in viruses. Masks work for all respiratory viruses, as shown by how very little Influenza circulated last fall.
  6. As Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender wrote, a mask mandate would help protect many vulnerable individuals in our society including seniors, immuno-compromised, Indigenous and racialized essential workers, and others. 
  7. Finally, we need a return to masking to protect our fragile healthcare system. Make no mistake; this is not “just a pediatric hospital issue”. If healthcare workers’ children get sick, they will make their parents sick as happened last January during the first Omicron wave. This means fewer healthcare staff in the emergency departments, or on hospital wards, to care for sick patients, adults and children.

‘Immunity debt,’ the unsubstantiated hypothesis that children need to get sick to build up their immune system is not supported by any scientific evidence. This idea, which was coined during the COVID-19 pandemic, is unfounded and possibly dangerous as it discourages protections right when society needs them most. In fact, evidence increasingly suggests that contracting COVID is damaging people’s immunity and making them more susceptible to other infections. Public Health Ontario issued a warning in its July evidence brief (top of page 2) suggesting that SARS-CoV-2-induced immune dysregulation “could have significant impact on the incidence and associated burden of infectious diseases.” Also highlighted in the same evidence brief are the increased risks of COVID reinfections on “all-cause mortality, hospitalization and adverse health outcomes”. 

On a final note, let’s remember that mask wearing is a minimally inconvenient protection. It serves a purpose to protect ourselves and others around us. The more people mask, the less viruses are circulating in the community and the more likely we will keep our hospitals, both adults and pediatrics, open and available when we or our loved ones need them. Those who portray a mask as a restriction are mischaracterizing its true function which is to prevent harm. 

Over-burdened children’s hospitals means action must be taken now.

Signed,

  • Protect our Province BC
  • Safe Schools Coalition BC
  • BC School Covid Tracker
  • Masks 4 East Van

Archived Briefings from Protect Our Province BC

Map of Canada with provinces colour coded from green to red based on ease of access to Paxlovid. BC is red.
Date: Wednesday, March 1 2023 at 2:00 PM PST A conversation with Protect Our Province BC doctors about Paxlovid and access to this useful Covid medication in BC Join Dr. Susan Kuo and Dr. Lyne Filiatrault of Protect Our Province BC on Wednesday, March 1, 2023, 2 pm, for a conversation about Paxlovid.  BC is… Continue reading Mar 1, 2023: Paxlovid: Why Should You Care?
Image of Dr. Gandhi on a blue background with the PoP BC logo and text that reads:
Date: Friday, Feb 3, 2023 at 1:30 PM PST Ever get the feeling we’re not getting the real story about COVID?Apparently “the pandemic is over!” yet it seems like everyone you know is ill or has a family member who is, while schools have multiple classes merged together because of so many teachers are out… Continue reading Feb 3, 2023: COVID Reality Check with Dr. Sanjiv Gandhi
Title image for briefing May 16, 2022 - COVID-19: I wish I had known...
Date: Wednesday, May 16 at 12:00 noon PDT What is it that people need to know about COVID-19 that they don’t know already? What about people who are tired of hearing about it? There is a lot that isn’t being communicated well to the general public, especially about long-term effects of the virus. Those who… Continue reading May 16, 2022: COVID-19: “I Wish I’d Known… “

More News from Protect Our Province BC

A view of 4 children from the waist down, standing in a row facing the camera. They are wearing rubber boots and the child second from the left's hands are visible - they look like they are held in fists. Text at top is
Dr. Rae Duncan, UK Cardiologist and Long Covid researcher, shares her thoughts on how schoolchildren are not being adequately protected from COVID-19 infections and their health impact.
Header image for the Sickest Children by Dr. Susan Kuo, featuring the Doctor, a painting by Luke Fildes, 1891.
Being a family physician is always challenging. It has become even more challenging during the ongoing COVID pandemic, which is now compounded by a seasonal flu epidemic and the multiple other viruses circulating in our community. Here is a glimpse of what my days in the office have been like recently.
Image of a senior in a wheelchair being pushed by a carer in an open field, heading says
Share This “A true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”Mahatma Ghandi At the September 28th BC Covid update, BC Health Minister Adrian Dix announced that in order to increase the in-hospital capacity with 1500 surge beds for impending COVID and influenza cases, patients would be “decanted”… Continue reading The Most Vulnerable People in B.C.