TORONTO – A plea by health officials to resume masking in Ontario and Quebec is a tall order that is unlikely to take hold without a significant culture shift, say observers who point to pandemic fatigue, mixed messages and divisive politics as likely hurdles.
The fact that a renewed push for personal protective measures remains voluntary means many people will consider it optional, and possibly even unnecessary, says behaviour expert and York University associate professor Rebecca Bassett-Gunter.
She notes that many people abandoned masks altogether after most pandemic precautions were lifted earlier this year.
It’s not clear that weeks of warnings from overwhelmed hospital staff over the
“triple threat” of viral infections is enough to get those same people to put their masks back on.
“Without mandating it, I think people are hearing a message that it must not be as bad as it was,” says Bassett-Gunter, whose research at the school of kinesiology and health science has included a look at how to get people to comply with COVID-19 precautions. “That’s a really hard implicit message to override, unfortunately.”
Add in pandemic fatigue and a yearning for festive holiday gatherings to return after two seasons of restraint, and public health officials face a tough psychological wall to break through, adds Dr. Eddy Lang, professor and department head for emergency medicine at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.
While his province isn’t seeing a surge in respiratory syncytial virus and influenza cases to the same degree as Ontario and Quebec, he noted cases are expected to increase as cold and flu season progresses.
“When we look at the wastewater analysis, RSV is still on the rise, which suggests that the worst of it may still be yet to come,” Lang said.
Source: ctvnews.ca
