If 80% of Canadians resumed wearing masks indoors, it would reduce the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths by two-thirds.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
This is what researcher Tara Moriarty of the University of Toronto calculated.
Knowing that such a simple measure has the power to save lives and avoid overloading caregivers who are out of breath, it is difficult to understand, in Quebec as elsewhere, the soft strategy of public health authorities in the midst of the seventh wave.
Asked last week about the relevance of formally recommending the wearing of masks in festive gatherings, the national director of public health, Dr.r Luc Boileau, pointed out that this was mainly for people at risk. As for the others, who can nevertheless transmit the virus even while being asymptomatic, the message remains timid. If they “want to be kind enough to wear it to avoid passing that on, that’s not a bad idea.”
If protecting the health of others was a matter of kindness, we would not have banned smoking indoors in public places.
People would have just been told that it would be nice not to smoke, without taking into account the harmful impacts of such a slackness on the health of non-smokers.
A parallel can be drawn with COVID-19, which spreads mainly through the air through infectious aerosols. These aerosols travel like cigarette smoke. They can remain airborne for a few hours and infect anyone nearby, even if they are more than two meters away. The risks are higher in an enclosed, poorly ventilated space or a dense crowd. In such cases, antiseptic gel or not, it does not change much. It would be even more important to do what the majority of people have stopped doing: wearing a mask.
If 80% of the population resumed wearing the mask indoors, it would reduce the number of hospitalizations and deaths related to COVID-19 by two thirds, I said.
These projections caught the attention of the Dr Alain Vadeboncoeur 1. In Quebec, that would mean that instead of 2,000 people hospitalized (with or for COVID), we could have limited ourselves to 600 and had 1,400 more beds to treat other patients. It’s not nothing !
By reflecting with other Internet users on ways to approach the pandemic more proactively, the Dr Vadeboncœur has come up with an interesting plan whose acronym is VIVRE.
V to vaccinate.
I to inform clearly.
V to ventilate.
R to relax when things are going well.
E to encourage indoor masking when cases are on the rise.
What did Public Health think about it? Not much.
“There seems to be a misunderstanding that would suggest that Public Health no longer recommends wearing a mask. That’s not true,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Services replied by email.
“Public Health has never ceased to recommend wearing a mask, especially when the distance with others cannot be observed and for vulnerable people. […] We believe that educated and informed people are able to make the right choices for their health and that of others. »
I believe it too. But that is the problem, underlines the DD Amélie Boisclair, intensivist at Pierre-Le Gardeur hospital, who applauded Dr.r Vadeboncoeur. “The public health message is not getting through. »
It’s as if we were left in 2020, when hand washing was thought to be a more important measure than wearing a mask.
People are told to individually manage their risk without explaining it to them. “We present the mask as being especially for the most vulnerable – when often people do not even know if they are or not. »
It’s not exactly free and informed consent. “A real risk management, you have to understand your individual and collective risk. What is the risk of letting the virus run in the medium and long term? »
All of this leads to wishful thinking for which the most vulnerable and exhausted healthcare workers pay the price. Not to mention all the collateral damage that remains invisible in the daily statistics. People who can no longer return to work after a long COVID. Those who have had complications as a result of COVID, such as stroke or pulmonary embolism. Financial stress. Isolation. The impact on young people in poorly ventilated classrooms. People who suffer alone at home, whose health deteriorates, whose important medical tests and operations are postponed.
“We are looking at a branch. But you never see the forest, ”laments the DD Clear wood.
Let’s say we are not out of the woods.