I wrote recently about a new SFU study showing the positive results of mandatory mask mandates.
Fraser Health has come close to this, but stopped just short, as a memo leaked to the NOW reveals a mask “recommendation” for staff at Burnaby Hospital.
“Given the continued transmission of COVID-19 in the community, and with more people returning to the workplace, Fraser Health is strongly recommending that all staff and medical staff wear a mask in the workplace when you cannot maintain a (two-metre) distance from others, including your coworkers,” reads the memo. “COVID-19 spreads mainly among people who are in close contact with one another (within approximately 2-metres), so the use of masks is particularly important in settings where people are close to each other or where physical distancing is difficult to maintain.”
Not all Fraser Health staff work in hospitals, of course, so for those workers in “community office settings” masks are again recommended, but if you work in a cubicle that has two metres of distance from others, you can take it off.
“It is about time,” said a Burnaby Hospital staff member who forwarded the memo, adding that the message should have been sent months ago. “It really takes times for management to wake up.”
The message to staff sounds good, but it’s frustrating for a couple of reasons. One is that health-care workers needed to be prodded to take this precaution this many months after the pandemic began. I mean, health-care workers of all people should already know this and be doing it.
The other issue is that Fraser Health is only “strongly recommending” and not making it mandatory.
As I wrote about on Wednesday, the new study by SFU researchers says they “found clear evidence that wearing a mask can have a significant impact on the spread of COVID-19.”
The researchers, from SFU’s Department of Economics, have also determined that “mask mandates are associated with a 25 per cent or larger weekly reduction in COVID-19 cases,” said a news release. “The finding of their study, still in preprint and not yet peer-reviewed, conclude that mandating indoor masks nationwide in early July could have reduced the weekly number of new cases in Canada by 25 to 40 per cent in mid-August, which translates into 700 to 1,100 fewer cases per week.”
You can read more about the study here.
I mean we have grocery stores like T&T and Whole Foods in Burnaby making masks mandatory for customers, but not hospitals and other Fraser Health facilities.
That seems less than ideal and feels like bad optics. Is it because health employees' unions are pushing back on this?
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
