Even as COVID cases mount, most opting not to wear masks

It's a message that has played out in public health circles for more than two years: wearing a mask indoors is among the easiest ways to fend off COVID-19.

However redundant, it's become particularly relevant again as Ontario and Hamilton steel for a seventh wave of the pandemic, with cases and levels of community transmission mounting.

It's one of the lowest public health measures you can have that still allows so much we value to continue," Dr. Fahad Razak, scientific director of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, told The Spectator in a statement.

Simple and effective - yet virtually no one is wearing one.

Once a staple for any outing, masks have become the forgotten safeguard since COVID restrictions were dropped province-wide earlier this year.

The Spectator observed such on several outings this week to grocery stores, malls and gyms.

Take the Fortinos on Wilson Street West in Ancaster.

Sure, the tunnel prior to its entrance encouraging customers to social distance remains, but inside there's no semblance of the practice. The circular floor stickers that would tell you in which direction to walk have either faded from use or been removed. The cue before the cash - where you'd wait until a staff member waved you through - also no longer exists.

Of the dozens of customers there on Tuesday afternoon, The Spec counted only five wearing masks. Most staff didn't wear one either, save for cashiers, of which a majority donned protective face gear.

The same was true for the Food Basics across the street, where only a handful of customers and cashiers could be seen sporting masks.

At Lime Ridge Mall, about a half-dozen shoppers on each floor wore masks. At least three-dozen stores had maskless staff inside, with workers in clothing locales the most likely to wear them. The odd worker in the food court also donned a mask, while the majority of cleaners wore them.

Meanwhile, at a GoodLife Fitness gym on the Mountain, only two people - a woman on an elliptical and a man on a weight machine - could be seen wearing masks Tuesday night.

Of course, it's not against the law to go bare-faced in public indoor spaces anymore.

The province adopted a personal risk assessment approach instead of extending its mandate, putting the onus on individuals to determine when to mask up or not.

It's a led to a widespread sense of pandemic fatigue, one that could put people with comorbidities or disabilities at risk of serious infection, warned an epidemiologist at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton.

(The) pandemic isn't yet over," said Dr. Catherine Clase, noting it's unfair" that those at-risk of serious illness have to decide between participating or their personal safety.

I understand the fatigue for people and the desire for it to be over but the Omicron wave has shown us how consequential the pandemic is still for society, for our lives."

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