Health data may be used in making masking orders
Municipal councils can lean on public health data to track the spread of COVID-19 in Niagara when making decisions about masking bylaws to limit spread of the virus, says the region’s top public health official.
Dr. Mustafa Hirji, Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, said recently published key COVID-19 indicators on his department’s website can aid in the decisions several councils are posed to make.
“There is no single indicator. You have to look at them holistically,” said Hirji, whose department has joined a growing number of public health units in Ontario in publishing key data points to track the virus as the economy reopens. “But it is data that can be used in decision-making.”
The indicators track public health and hospital capacities, the spread of the virus and contact tracing. The metrics were suggested by all 34 of Ontario’s public health units as a way to use data to track the impact of the novel coronavirus as the economy reopens and use them to determine if a region should move forward into the next phase or take a step back.
Ontario’s Health Ministry has declined to answer questions about how or if the metrics are being used in its decision-making.
St. Catharines city council voted Monday night to develop a mandatory masking bylaw for the city, and regional council is set to debate the issue Wednesday. Niagara Falls is also to discuss the issue this month.
Hirji said while the data is useful tool for decision-makers, the issue of masking is a political one.
“What level of risk are we willing to take as a community?” Hirji said.
Once masking orders are in place, it will take weeks for data to reflect any impact.
In Niagara’s specific case, it may be hard to determine the qualitative impact of masks because the peninsula’s case count has been steadily, if slowly, falling for more than a month. If a month after an order is in place, Hirji said, cases fall further, it will be hard to definitively attribute that to masks.
Hirji also said concern some councillors have over how to handle people who cannot wear masks for medical reasons is going to be tricky, no matter what model of enforcement is chosen.
He said there are people with lung and heart conditions who may react badly to wearing a mask.
“Now for others who say, ‘I get claustrophobic wearing a mask,’ or if someone refuses to wear one because it is uncomfortable for them, will that be accepted as a reasonable reason not to wear one? That is a decision for councillors to make,” Hirji said.
“I think the best option may be to rely on an honour system and see how that goes and make changes accordingly.”
Hirji said it could be possible for public health to issue to family doctors bracelets that indicate a person cannot wear a mask for medical reasons. Physicians could give them to appropriate patients. But that is an option that will have some cost to it and will take time to implement.
There were five new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Niagara Tuesday. One involving a person who travelled to the United States, and another three tied to community transmission with an unknown source. Hirji said another case is still being investigated.
The new cases, the biggest daily jump in more than a week, brings the historic total of COVID-19 cases to 769, with 28 of them active. Two people are in St. Catharines hospital being treated, one of them in the intensive care unit.
To date, 61 people with COVID-19 have died in Niagara.