On the same day the provincial election campaign began, Peterborough’s medical officer of health Dr. Thomas Piggott and two other regional medical officers of health sent a joint letter to Ontario’s chief medical officer of health asking him to temporarily resurrect the provincial masking mandate in workplaces, schools, and grocery stores and pharmacies.
The May 4th letter to Dr. Kieran Moore, signed by Dr. Piggott along with Dr. M. Mustafa Hirji of Niagara Region and Dr. Shanker Nesathurai of Windsor-Essex, points out the Ontario Science Table has reported persistently high amounts of COVID-19 in the wastewater, a key marker of transmission, along with increased hospitalizations.
“Consistent with this, in each of our respective health units, we continue to see significant impacts that are not relenting,” the letter reads.
“In Peterborough Public Health region, we see hospitalizations of persons with COVID-19 recently exceeding any previous wave. In Niagara, for the past three weeks, hospitalizations have remained equivalent to the peaks of wave two and three, requiring our main hospital system to ramp down surgeries to 70 per cent. On Monday this week, our overstretched hospital systems had 100 patients admitted, but without a bed.”
A provincial masking mandate currently only remains in effect until June 11 for high-risk indoor settings including public transit, healthcare settings (including hospitals, doctors’ offices, and home and community care), long-term care and retirement homes, and shelters and other congregate care settings that provide care and services to medically and socially vulnerable individuals.
The joint letter asks Dr. Moore to temporarily expand the masking mandate to include other indoor settings including workplaces, schools, college and universities, ans “essential service settings” such as grocery stores and pharmacies.
“To be fully effective and clear in communication to Ontarians we believe this is needed at a provincial, not a local level,” the letter reads.
The letter also states that the pandemic is “exacerbating inequalities in our society,” with those who have the worst social determinants of health subject to more infections, more hospitalizations, more isolation from work and school, more lost income due to isolation, and more risk of long-term disability with long COVID.
“The return of masking could help protect those with inequities and vulnerabilities, relieve the pressures on our hospitals, and most importantly protect the health of the people we serve,” the letter concludes.
PDF: Joint letter to Dr. Kieran Moore (May 4, 2022)
Joint letter to Dr. Kieran Moore (May 4, 2022)
