Numbers don’t support mask mandate
Number of new cases doesn’t add up to evidence that a crackdown is needed
The decision to make masks mandatory in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario seems quite popular, but it’s challenging to identify the serious local problem that prompted the move now, or the gains that are likely to result from it.
Masks do have some preventive value. Most people wear them. I do, too. When an individual chooses to wear a mask, it’s a simple act of courtesy to others. When public health officials mandate the use of masks, it suggests that everything we have done up to now is still not enough, and there is a big, scary problem out there. That’s not supported by the facts.
If there was a time to make masks mandatory, it was a month ago, when Stage 2 of the economic restart allowed a wide range of retail businesses to reopen. We weren’t sure what would happen, but now we have a month of results, and they are outstanding.
Over the past month, Ottawa’s virus testing has never identified a daily community case count beyond single digits, and there were only two days when the daily number was greater than five. That’s not to say that there were no unidentified cases, of course, but it’s a good indicator that the problem here is small.
The COVID-19 numbers in the three adjoining areas that have implemented the mask ban are even better. Renfrew County currently has two identified cases, both in self-isolation. Over the entire course of the pandemic, there have been only 12 cases of community transmission. The Eastern Ontario Health Unit has been averaging one or two cases a day since midMay and has had none for a week. Leeds, Grenville and Lanark has two active cases and scarcely any over the past month.
How much better do public health officials think it can get?
Voluntary mask compliance has worked quite well, making it reasonable to ask what incremental gains would be made by making masks mandatory. Ottawa Public Health’s latest polling indicates that 73 per cent are wearing masks in indoor public spaces most of the time or always, up five percentage points from the previous week.
In an attempt to explain the timing of their move, local public health officials suggested it’s to prepare us for the long-awaited Stage 3 of economic reopening, expected later this month. OK, but Stage 3 isn’t really going to change things that much. Large gatherings will still be banned.
Two of the most visible changes will be allowing limited inside seating in restaurants and the reopening of gyms. But get this: the new mandatory mask rule excludes gyms and restaurants. Logically, it could hardly be otherwise, but where’s the gain?
At the same time, children will be expected to wear masks in indoor public spaces, although they won’t have to wear them in schools. The exceptions are for children under two, or children under five who refuse to wear a mask.
Despite all of that, most people would ask, what’s the harm in having everyone wear a mask? In my view, it’s this: We all have to learn to deal with some level of risk in exchange for returning to a semblance of what we called normal life.
Fear makes us unwilling to take risks, even small ones. That’s why we are facing a school opening plan that will likely have children in class two days a week and a business opening plan that has so many costs and restrictions that profit becomes elusive.
Our public policies should be guided by numbers and logic, not fear. But when responsible public health officials ignore their own numbers and insist that the situation is still so frightening that we need even more health precautions, it sends the wrong message.
Randall Denley is an Ottawa political commentator and author of the new mystery Payback, available at randalldenley. com. Contact him at randalldenley1@gmail.com.