Ontario's chief medical officer of health issued a strong recommendation Monday for residents to mask in all indoor public settings in order to protect children from a "triple threat" of respiratory viruses, while warning that a possible mandate remains on the table.
Dr. Kieran Moore's advice came as pediatrics hospitals have been overwhelmed in recent weeks by a massive influx of very sick patients. COVID-19 is still circulating, but the larger threats to young children at the moment are influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, he said, noting that capacity in children's hospitals is at 100 per cent.
Simcoe Muskoka Medical Officer of Health Dr. Charles Gardener says he is pleased Dr. Moore gave special emphasis on cleaning surfaces and hand hygiene but also gave a focus on RSV and influenza.
For now, there is no mask mandate plan.
"We don't have the same legislative support to do that kind of thing as we did earlier in the pandemic with the Reopening Ontario Act," explains Gardner. "I think it would be very difficult for us do that with the tools we have now, and we'd be relying on the province to take that kind of direction."
Gardner noted Ontario's top doctor has certain legal tools he could use, but they are limited.
"He noted in his press conference this morning that his legislative authority primarily resides with directives to health-care facilities and agencies, and that mandates and other venues really require other ministries to take action."
In Simcoe Muskoka, Gardner says they are seeing a dramatic increase in influenza.
"The threat from the pandemic until now is that we've had almost no influenza circulating, and I think that was the result of the control measures we had in place to deal with COVID-19."
In the week leading up to Nov. 5th, there have been 116 cases of laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza in Simcoe Muskoka. The per cent of tests done for the flu that are coming back positive is 17 per cent as opposed to 12 per cent for the province.
RSV is not a reportable disease under the Health Promotion Act, according to Gardner, but he asked the health unit's epidemiologists for data - both provincial and local - based on hospital reporting, and he says there has been a six per cent positivity for the virus, which is actually a bit lower than it was a year ago at this time, but still higher than in years before.
Gardner says the concern right now from Dr. Moore is about young children becoming ill with RSV and influenza and the difficulty of the health-care system to manage that.
"The main advice is to take those infection control measures to heart to help protect young children."
Asked by Barrie 360 if mask mandates and not exposing kids to viruses the past few years is responsible for the extreme outbreak and if we could just be going around in circles with masks on and masks off, Gardner did not reject that.
"From my reading and discussion with colleagues, I believe that it would be fair to say that we're seeing a rebound of these infections now that we've lifted control measures and kept them in check through the pandemic, that you may indeed be seeing a young population that has vulnerability because they weren't infected before with influenza and RSV, as well," Gardner said. "We're seeing higher levels than we would have before the pandemic, and it's been a great challenge for all of us to be dealing with the pandemic of the century. We have this rebound effect, and we have to manage it right now in keeping it under control. As to where we go beyond the week, two weeks to come, I think it would be hard to say."
