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Why mask mandates likely wouldn’t solve the crisis in children’s hospitals

That is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly evaluation of well being and medical science information emailed to subscribers. If you have not subscribed, you are able to do that by clicking here.


  • Rising calls to reinstate masks mandates aren’t being heeded by well being officers. 

  • However what affect would masks mandates throughout Canada even have on the surge of RSV and flu straining youngsters’s hospitals? 

  • Not all viruses are the identical and mandating masks now’s tougher to justify. 


Masks are an efficient layer of safety within the battle in opposition to COVID-19 and have been important all through the pandemic, serving to to stop an infection, sluggish transmission and make crowded indoor environments safer when used appropriately.

However whereas everybody is inspired to put on a masks to guard themselves in sure conditions throughout respiratory sickness season, mandating them now’s tougher to justify for a variety of causes. 

Not a single provincial and territorial chief medical officer within the nation has opted to make using masks necessary once more, regardless of rising public strain and calls from some media and front-line physicians for masks mandates to alleviate the pressure on hospitals.

The highest medical doctors in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador have all mentioned now isn’t the time to reinstate masks mandates, however proceed to advocate masks to sluggish viral unfold.

The query is, what affect would widespread masks mandates throughout Canada even have on the surge in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in youngsters and the rapid return of the annual flu season at the moment overwhelming youngsters’s hospitals in a lot of the nation?

WATCH | Provinces resist rising strain for return of masks mandates:

Provinces resist masks mandates as respiratory infections rise

Well being consultants are pushing for masking in public as respiratory diseases surge, however provinces together with Quebec, Alberta and B.C. are resisting requires renewed masks mandates.

“It is actually not clear as a result of RSV is being transmitted primarily in daycares and in younger youngsters and there we do not need to have masks mandates,” mentioned Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, a pediatric infectious illnesses specialist at Montreal’s Sainte-Justine youngsters’s hospital and the previous chair of the Nationwide Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).

“We wish youngsters to have the ability to develop and form of stay a standard life as a lot as doable,” she added.”What you actually should do is lower your variety of contacts and be sure that if you’re sick, you keep away. And if you cannot keep away, then you definately put on a masks.”

Not all viruses are the identical

Masks mandates performed a big position in stopping the unfold of COVID-19 and to a big extent the flu over the previous two years, together with way more excessive measures resembling lockdowns, journey restrictions, faculty closures and the shuttering of indoor companies.

Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious illnesses doctor and affiliate professor on the College of Alberta in Edmonton, mentioned the affect masks have on transmission is commonly laborious to tease aside from different public well being measures that had been finished on the similar time.

“If everybody used glorious masks routinely, there’s this concept that we might haven’t any bother and I do not suppose that is true, I do not suppose that is supported by the proof,” she mentioned.

“However I do suppose that they’ll have a job in decreasing transmission that could possibly be vital, and that the time is at all times higher earlier reasonably than later. You do not need to put them in when the horse is properly and actually out of the barn.”

Masks mandates are heavy-handed public well being measures that had been extra justifiable with a brand new virus previous to the event of COVID-19 vaccines and coverings, however not all viruses are the identical and COVID levels have stabilized or dropped throughout the nation. 

“It is not going to have the identical affect. It is not that it is a zero affect, however would it not be as impactful with RSV because it was for COVID? Most likely not,” mentioned Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious illness doctor on the Johns Hopkins Middle for Well being Safety in Baltimore.

“The easiest way to get a deal with on RSV within the present scenario is ensuring that children, after they’re sick, they’re staying house. However each respiratory virus isn’t going to be amenable to the identical issues that work for COVID.”

Adalja mentioned there are additionally points with youngsters carrying masks, together with their capability to put on them correctly and the match of the masks, along with the very fact that children usually tend to get contaminated with RSV by touching surfaces after which their faces.

Masks mandates performed a big position in stopping the unfold of COVID-19 and to a big extent the flu over the previous two years, together with way more excessive measures resembling lockdowns, journey restrictions, faculty closures and the shuttering of indoor companies. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

RSV additionally transmits in another way than different viruses, Quach-Thanh mentioned, pointing to a 1981 study in the Journal of Pediatrics that recommended RSV primarily spreads by way of shut contact, droplets and surfaces.

“It is an interesting examine displaying that transmission by [surfaces] happens, but it surely doesn’t rule out transmission by aerosol particles at short-range,” Marr mentioned, including that as a result of the examine was finished in a hospital, a spot that’s often well-ventilated, the danger of aerosol transmission might need been lowered.

RSV additionally impacts adults and kids in another way, with a 2015 study in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology suggesting speedy antigen exams for RSV have “poor sensitivity” in adults which will make them ineffective — as a result of they shed a lot much less virus than youngsters.

“Masks in all probability have some affect on RSV transmission, nevertheless, RSV transmission is probably going occurring largely from children-to-children and floor transmission is essential for RSV in a means that it’s not for COVID,” mentioned Adalja.

“So adults carrying masks, it is in all probability not going to have the identical affect on RSV transmission as a result of it is probably not adults giving it to youngsters, it is youngsters giving it to youngsters … I do not suppose that we’ve got to deal with every little thing as if it is COVID-19.”

Linsey Marr, an knowledgeable within the airborne transmission of viruses and an engineering professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., mentioned masks mandates would in all probability assist scale back the variety of circumstances of flu.

“Through the first yr of the pandemic, when individuals had been distancing and masking, there was virtually no flu. The measures we had been taking in opposition to COVID-19 had been very efficient for the flu,” she mentioned. “For RSV, the impact of a masks mandate is not as clear.”

SARS-CoV-2, influenza and RSV are all completely different beasts and utilizing masks mandates as a one-size-fits-all resolution to the disaster in youngsters’s hospitals could also be an oversimplification that ignores the other ways these viruses unfold and the age teams they hit hardest.

WATCH | Strain on youngsters’s hospitals prompts requires return of masks mandates

Calls mount for return of masks mandates because of surge of sick youngsters

Some are calling on governments to reimpose masks mandates to sluggish the unfold of respiratory diseases and scale back the strain on youngsters’s hospitals, that are seeing an inflow of RSV, the flu and COVID unexpectedly, resulting in longer wait instances and a few cancelled surgical procedures.

“Infants are most in danger from RSV, and so they cannot put on masks, after all. Infants get the virus from individuals round them, and if these individuals masks, there could be much less RSV on the air and on surfaces,” Marr mentioned. 

“Infants could be uncovered to much less virus and could be much less prone to develop into contaminated. So in concept, a masks mandate may assist scale back circumstances of RSV, however there’s much more uncertainty in regards to the magnitude of the impact.” 

Extra instruments to battle unfold of viruses

One factor that RSV and influenza have in frequent is that they are much extra critical for infants and the aged, however not like RSV, we’ve got extra instruments in our toolkit in opposition to the flu — information exhibits we simply do not use them broadly sufficient.

Lower than 40 per cent of Canadians opted to get a flu shot in 2020, in line with the latest federal data, regardless of being advisable and obtainable for everybody older than six months previous. 

“Flu is rising at a very quick price proper now, and youthful youngsters are at larger danger of significant illness if contaminated with flu,” mentioned Dr. David Naylor, co-chair of the federal authorities’s COVID-19 Immunity Activity Power. “Sadly, uptake of flu vaccine in youngsters stays low.”

In Alberta, barely greater than 27 per cent of the inhabitants bought a flu shot final yr, and up to now simply 15 per cent of Albertans have rolled up their sleeves this yr — with infants, toddlers and youngsters properly under 10 per cent protection. 

“There is not any vaccine for RSV,” mentioned Naylor. “However accelerating flu vaccines within the very younger and really previous is essential.”

There are RSV vaccines in the works and there’s hope one could possibly be obtainable within the close to future, and Sanofi and AstraZeneca introduced the European Commission authorized a one-dose RSV drug referred to as nirsevimab earlier this month.

“That is going to be vital. That is one thing that Canada ought to have and the U.S. may have as properly finally,” mentioned Adalja. “After which possibly by subsequent season, we’ll have RSV vaccinations focused to high-risk adults and pregnant girls.”

The speedy surge of RSV and flu in Ontario youngsters’s hospitals is showing early signs of slowing down, with the variety of five- to 17-year-olds presenting to hospitals with respiratory signs dropping from 1,134 on Nov. 9 to 824 on Nov. 16.

“Pediatric hospitals at all times get hit with RSV yearly. It was often a winter illness. Right here it appears to be a fall illness, and we appear to be having an earlier low season enhance,” mentioned Adalja. 

“Whether or not that is going to be extra extreme or not, I feel we have to see, but it surely’s clear that each baby by the age of three will get RSV.”

WATCH | Is it time to carry again masks mandates?:

Is it time to carry again masks mandates? | Fast Query

Dr. Barry Pakes, York Area Medical Officer of Well being, and Dr. Fahad Razak, former head of the Ontario Science Desk, focus on whether or not public well being officers ought to carry again masks mandates to stop hospitals changing into overwhelmed with a triple-whammy of respiratory diseases.

However the drop in hospital visits for newborns to four-year-olds has been less pronounced, with the seven-day common all the way down to 1,110 from a peak of 1,263 on Nov. 11, and provinces like Nova Scotia and Quebec are nonetheless seeing an unprecedented surge of pediatric sufferers.

“Masks are one software, however what you actually should deal with is defending probably the most weak and for RSV these are younger infants,” Quach-Thanh mentioned. 

“For those who ship throughout the winter, be sure that whoever involves see the child has zero signs in any respect, and much more so, lower contacts with these infants — defend them, cocoon them. That is actually what we need to do.”

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