Last updated: March 14, 2024

Demands

1. Maintain and enforce mask requirements in hospitals and long-term care settings year-round for BC medical staff, contractors, visitors and volunteers.
2. Restore mask requirements for patients, with reasonable exceptions and accommodations. Given that patients are often the ones who are sick and contagious in healthcare settings, a lack of patient masking increases infection risks in crowded waiting rooms, wards, and ERs.
3. Improve airborne precautions including wider use of N95-equivalent masks (respirators). Following the lead of some European countries, consider making N95-equivalent masks the default – particularly by and around vulnerable patients, and certainly upon request. Respirators provide superior protection, especially as surgical masks aren’t designed to protect against airborne pathogens.
4. Issue a clear directive to private and community healthcare settings requiring the same minimum mask coverage as government facilities. Vulnerable people also need ongoing access to primary care providers, dentists, paramedical practitioners, medical labs and imaging – and airborne illnesses are the same everywhere.

Quick Facts

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

• Year-round protection: COVID-19 is not confined to a particular season, and large waves have occurred in the summer. Moreover, masks provide protection against many different airborne or respiratory-transmitted illnesses. The BCCDC is recording elevated invasive strep cases among children, while the Public Health Agency of Canada is warning about increased measles risks in the spring.
• Patient safety: The last time BC tried to remove healthcare mask requirements, it was followed by multiple Covid outbreaks. COVID has risen to be the third leading cause of death, and hospital-acquired COVID-19 is at least 70 times more deadly than COVID contracted in the community. Places like cancer centres, ERs, and children’s hospitals need to be safe year-round. Nobody should be forced to risk foreseeable, preventable harms to access necessary care. 
• Worker safety: Healthcare workers deserve a safe working environment, especially as the healthcare sector has experienced the highest rates of Worksafe claims for COVID-19. Our healthcare system can’t afford to lose more staff – either temporarily to acute illnesses, or long-term to Long COVID. 
• A necessary layer: Nearly 60% of COVID cases spread asymptomatically, meaning that symptom checks alone can’t prevent infection. While COVID vaccination is essential, it doesn’t fully prevent either infections or long-term health impacts – and only 26.5% of British Columbians were vaccinated this fall. Additionally, vaccines provide less protection to many immunocompromised people, and other serious infectious diseases don’t have vaccines at all. 
• Accessibility: Multiple polls have shown that 85–91% of respondents must delay healthcare due to lack of masks and COVID safety. Moreover, both COVID and Long COVID disproportionately impact Indigenous, racialized, disabled, 2SLBTQIA+ and lower-income communities, underscoring how COVID safety is a fundamental matter of health equity.
• Protecting our healthcare system: BC policy-makers have identified strengthening healthcare as a priority. In a system currently grappling with labour shortages and capacity issues, infections in healthcare can lead to surgical delays, prolonged hospitalization and other interruptions of care. Rising rates of Long COVID also contribute to healthcare demand, with 1 in 9 Canadian adults having developed Long COVID so far.
• Evidence-based support: Masks are a low-cost, high-impact tool to reduce the spread of many illnesses. The Government of Canada, the World Health Organization and many others continue to support their use. A 2004 healthcare study co-authored by BC’s current Provincial Health Officer found that for SARS-CoV-1, “Consistently wearing a mask… was protective for the nurses” while noting that “[r]isk was lower with consistent use of a N95 mask than with consistent use of a surgical mask.” 

CURRENT RISKS IN BC

• BC continues to experience high rates of COVID-19, as well as nearly the highest excess mortality in the country. COVID-19 can cause not only acute illness or death, but delayed and long-term health impacts, with risks that multiply with each reinfection.
• BC has just had its first measles case since 2019, even as cases rise steeply in other regions. Measles is one of the most contagious airborne diseases in the world, and is known for causing immune amnesia, erasing existing immunity to other illnesses.
• There is currently no mandatory self-isolation period while sick with COVID-19, and people can return to work, school and social interactions while still COVID-positive and infectious.
• Hospitals and long-term care facilities may keep COVID-positive patients in the same room as other people, and declaring an outbreak is discretionary.
• Sick BC health workers may return to work while symptomatic, and some health authorities specifically discourage healthcare workers from testing themselves for COVID-19.
• Access to COVID-19 treatments such as Paxlovid has been the most restricted of any province in Canada, with recent guideline changes still leaving many high-risk people ineligible, and falling far short of other provinces.
• Only around ¼ of British Columbians are up-to-date on COVID vaccination.
• BC has closed its four Long COVID clinics, to the consternation of doctors and patients.
• BC’s healthcare system is in crisis, with labour shortages that have led to situations with no doctors available for hospitalized patients or to keep ERs open.

Others Weigh In on Healthcare Masking

Read personal stories from vulnerable British Columbians here.

• Kasari Govender (BC Human Rights Commissioner): “If there is one space that all vulnerable people should be able to rely on to prioritize their safety, it is in healthcare settings, including long term care facilities…[the] removal of masking directives in healthcare settings does not uphold a human rights centered approach to public health.” Read the full statement.
• Dr. Bonnie Henry et al. in a 2004 study of SARS-CoV-1: “Consistently wearing a mask (either surgical or particulate respirator type N95)…was protective for the nurses, and consistent use of the N95 mask was more protective than not wearing a mask. Risk was reduced by consistent use of a surgical mask, but not significantly. Risk was lower with consistent use of a N95 mask than with consistent use of a surgical mask.” Read the study.
• Protect our Province BC: “Not only does removing masking in healthcare settings make hospital-acquired (nosocomial) illness far more likely, it will result in the illness of far more healthcare workers which will further strain a medical system already near the breaking point.” Read the full statement.
• Dr. Tara Moriarty (Associate Professor University of Toronto, Infectious Disease Research Laboratory, co-founder of COVID-19 Resources Canada): “Promoting the safety of people at higher risk from COVID in essential healthcare settings is not only desirable. It is required if institutions truly support equitable, accessible care that promotes health.” Read the full statement.
• David Osborn, BSc, CMIOSH, SpDipEM, Chartered Safety and Health Practitioner: “The World Health Organization continues to recommend universal masking policies in health and social care…[abandoning] universal masking…is viewed by some patients as playing ‘Russian roulette’ with their health.” Read the full statement.
• Over 29,000 petitioners and rising: “Canadian hospitals need to maintain MASK mandates.” Find the petition here.
• 2,034 poll respondents (via a social media poll by a Vancouver Covid safety advocate): 85% of respondents state they are “avoiding or putting off non-emergency medical visits due to the removal of mask mandates in healthcare settings”. Find the poll here. 
• 450 clinically vulnerable people (via a poll by Clinically Vulnerable Families): 91% of respondents state they “have or would delay / cancel medical appointments due to high Covid risks”; many of the remaining 9% state they had no choice but to attend. Find the poll here.