Staying COVID-conscious is getting harder to do, advocates say that should change

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It was a familiar scene, but one that is becoming less common in Ottawa and across the country.

On a recent Friday, people arriving for an outdoor concert and dance at Saw Gallery in downtown Ottawa were greeted with signs telling them that masks were mandatory. The same signs thanked them for supporting their community.

Participants happily complied. Some said they have continued to mask and seek out COVID-safe spaces since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Others said they don’t always wear masks in public, but do so when there is a higher risk or they are protecting those who are more vulnerable.

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“I am definitely here to throw my money at the organizers of masked events and also to be around the people who care about them,” said Tori Waugh who is a long-time fan of concert headliner Rae Spoon. The musician is immune compromised and requests masking and COVID safe policies at their concerts.

At a time when many people are trying to put COVID-19 behind them, some promoters and organizers continue to offer mandatory mask events to support artists and members of the public making efforts to stay COVID safe.

That includes Ottawa’s Gallery 101 on Catherine Street, which makes masks mandatory every second Saturday. “We have visitors who are elderly and there may be all sorts of people who have lower immune systems,” said gallery director and curator Laura Margita. “Since COVID is not going anywhere, it is up to us to try to keep ourselves and our artists and everyone else safe.”

But, even as Ottawa wastewater readings show a COVID-19 surge taking off in the city, part of a wave now spreading across North America, keeping informed about COVID-19 is becoming harder. That comes at a time when there is a growing body of evidence about a vast array of potential long-term risks from COVID-19 – including neurological and cardiovascular damage.

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Information about COVID-19 is less easily accessible than it once was and public health officials are less engaged in informing the public about those risks, said Dr. Joe Vipond, an Alberta emergency physician. He is among a group of concerned physicians and academics from across the country who created the not-for-profit Canadian Covid Society, in part, to fill in growing information gaps around COVID-19. On its website, the organization says it is committed to empowering people across Canada to protect their health and safety as COVID-19 continues to spread and evolve.

“We live in a society at the moment that has decided we can ignore COVID and, in fact, we should ignore COVID. We are told you do you and make your own risk predictions, but the information we need is not provided,” he said.

He noted that public health officials are seldom seen promoting masking or talking about the potential risks from COVID-19, the way they were earlier in the pandemic.

Increasingly, the data that tracks COVID infections is harder to find.

As of the end of this month, the Ontario government will stop funding the provincial wastewater surveillance program that has been a leader in tracking the virus that causes COVID-19 along with other infectious diseases, such as influenza and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus).

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The provincial government says it is making the move to avoid duplication with the federal government, which is expanding its wastewater surveillance program. Researchers, health officials and others argue that the federal program will be significantly smaller than Ontario’s existing program and be less able to pinpoint timing and severity of COVID waves and other infectious diseases.

Last month, the Ottawa Board of Health directed the city’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches to write to provincial and federal partners to find ways to continue the wastewater testing that has been done at uOttawa since early in the pandemic. Meanwhile, some members of the public have started a petition to try to force the province to keep wastewater testing.

Rob Delatolla’s lab at uOttawa was the first in the country to identify the virus that cause COVID-19 in wastewater. It has continued to lead in the use of wastewater surveillance to better understand spread and risk of COVID-19 as well as other diseases.

Meanwhile, rapid antigen tests, which were once handed out by grocery stores and pharmacies across Ontario, are becoming harder to find.

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Organizers of the recent mandatory mask mandate concert at SAW Gallery had planned to have them on hand so people could test, but they had difficulty finding tests that were not expired.

Ottawa Public Health says the agency continues to make the tests available at selected locations — community clinics and neighbourhood health and wellness hubs. OPH will continue to offer the rapid antigen tests to the public “while provincial supplies last” said a spokesperson for public health.

More information is available at Ottawa Public Health.

Many individuals will have a difficult time knowing whether they have COVID-19, if they can’t access test kits.

There have been reports that people at high risk who qualify for the anti-viral treatment Paxlovid have had difficulty finding a pharmacy that stocks it.

Timely and up-to-date information about COVID-19 case counts and deaths are also more difficult to find, making it difficult to judge when the risk from COVID-19 is high in a community.

“A lot of things suggest to me that people are not being provided with the information they need in order to make informed decisions,” said Vipond.

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Among other things, members of the Canadian Covid Society are advocating for a return to mandatory masking inside hospitals “because vulnerable patients shouldn’t be exposed to a virus unwittingly.” They are also pushing for clean air in schools to reduce spread among children.

Vipond noted that the Tour de France has recently made masks mandatory, during a pandemic wave in France.

“If you have worked your whole life to be in the Olympics or the Tour de France, the last thing you want is to be hit at the knees with a virus that eliminates you from competition or worse. Shouldn’t we expect the same for our patients? It boggles my mind that we have decided it is OK to infect susceptible people.”

Artist Rae Spoon, who was the force behind the mask mandatory concert at SAW Gallery said they bring an air filter to concerts and ask audience members and others on site to wear masks and take COVID-19 precautions. Spoon, who uses the pronouns they and them, was immune compromised after cancer treatment and continues to take precautions.

It is something many audience members appreciate, Spoon said.

“I have been pleasantly surprised by the support. During a tour in the Maritimes last spring, many people at shows told me they hadn’t been to an event since 2019 and were very grateful.”

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