Local top doc says her hands are tied on future masking policies, decision will have to come from province

With mandatory masking policies set to lift across many sectors in Ontario on Monday, it seems the decision to re-implement them should we see a resurgence of COVID-19 in the future is out of the hands of local public health officials.

“Since the last update of the Reopening Act, that ability for local medical officers has been removed from the legislation,” said Waterloo Region Medical Officer of Health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang during her final weekly pandemic update on Friday.

This comes as new modelling from Ontario's Science Advisory Table suggests removing the mask mandate, coupled with the continued spread of the BA.2 Omicron subvariant, will likely lead to a bump in hospitalizations and ICU occupancy, and as the science table itself has suggested mandatory masking rules may be required again in the future.

The change is in contrast to what was once a perceived hesitancy on the part of the province earlier in the pandemic to adopt province-wide pandemic measures, choosing instead to let local health units decide for themselves what measures were prudent at the local level.

This included moves like putting capacity limits and other restrictions in place for certain businesses like those in the personal services sector early, as well as the decision to hold Waterloo Region back from moving to Step 2 of the province's reopening plan during the Delta wave.

“It is part of the province moving toward more of a provincial approach to managing COVID over the longer term,” said Dr. Wang. “Their intention is to have provincial policy, as we've seen recently with the decisions.”

Most recently, the province has shown a desire for this kind of province-wide approach when it comes to loosening masking rules in schools as of Monday. Several school boards had asked the Ministry of Education, the education minister, and the premier to allow them to keep those measures in place for two weeks following the end of the March break. Those requests, including from the Waterloo Regional District School Board, were flatly denied.

Dr. Wang says, moving forward, this does likely mean any future mandatory masking policies will likely need to come from the province, though she will continue to make suggestions based on whatever the situation may be locally at the time.

“From my perspective, I will continue to monitor what's going on with COVID-19 and keep the community informed if there are some significant changes and continue to present my recommendations,” Dr. Wang said.

She says local Medical Officers of Health can also still reach out to the province and the Chief Medical Officer of Health and ask for extra measures.

“If we have a situation in our region that we feel is significantly different from that of the province and may require significantly different tools to manage, then we continue to have the ability to consult with him on anything additional that may be required for our region and, if so, he would be the one to issue it.”