Ontario on track to lift mask mandate by end of March, top doctor says

Ontario’s top health official says that the province remains on track to lift its mask mandate by the end of the month, despite signs suggesting that the more infectious Omicron subvariant BA.2 is well on its way to becoming dominant.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore made the comment during a briefing on Thursday afternoon.

He said that while modelling forecasts point to BA.2 becoming dominant in Ontario by mid-March, there is no evidence that the variant is more virulent than previous strains.

For that reason, Moore said that he is confident that Ontario will still be able to lift the mask mandate for most indoor settings by the end of March as part of a broader reopening.

Moore has previously said that the mask mandate could remain in effect for some high-risk settings, such as hospitals and long-term care homes, for a longer period of time.

“We'll be monitoring the data in the coming weeks but I do agree with the Premier and the (Health) minister that because the trends look so good that we can anticipate removing mandatory masking by the end of March if the trends continue,” he said on Thursday.

Moore said that the province is beginning to see an uptick in virus spread as observed through wastewater surveillance data but he noted that the rise isn’t entirely unexpected given the lifting of many public health restrictions.

He also said that 30 to 40 per cent of Ontarians likely have enhanced protection due to a recent COVID-19 infection, which should supress any rebound in case numbers even with the presence of BA.2.

The BA.2 sub-variant is believed to be 1.5 times more infectious than the original Omicron strain.

Research has suggested that there is some degree of reinfection as a result of the new sub variant but Moore said that appears to only be happening in a “very small proportion of cases.”

“I do believe the highest risk is behind us,” he said. “We saw the risk of hospitalization peak around the third week of January and we have had declining rates from 4,000 down to around 800 Ontarians in hospital now testing positive with COVID-19. But it does not mean the risk is gone and hence the reason we're keeping masking and delaying removing it at a population level for the next couple of weeks as we follow the data.”