Breakenridge: COVID fatigue and politics are guiding Alberta's masking mandates – Calgary Herald

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Alberta is likely a week or so away from allowing its two NHL teams to return to full capacity crowds, but as it turns out, Manitoba got there first.

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The Winnipeg Jets played before a full house last Wednesday night, with Canada’s other NHL teams still playing to 50 per cent or less. The catch, however, was that Winnipeg fans still needed to wear masks.

It’s an interesting reminder of how masking requirements need not get in the way of loosening other restrictions. Arguably, mask mandates could be the last restriction to be lifted since they are the least intrusive. Businesses do indeed suffer from other restrictions and public health measures, but it would be hard to argue that mask mandates have that effect.

However, masking is an inconvenience, one that most are surely rather to be done with. And that was the essence of the dilemma facing Calgary city council last week as it contemplated the fate of the city’s mask bylaw.

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The decision to end the mask bylaw at the same time the provincial mandate expires will be welcomed by many, but it will come as a disappointment to many others. On balance, though, it was probably the right decision.

Unless things go sideways over the next week, Alberta’s mask mandate is set to end a week from today. The province already prioritized the end of masking in schools, as well as all mask requirements for those aged 12 and under.

Clearly, the Kenney government senses that enough Albertans want to be done with masking that they see a political payoff in leading with that approach. Masks also seem to embody some broader significance about how one views the threat from COVID-19 or the degree to which we need to take it seriously.

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Part of determining whether masking needs to go is whether people would prefer that it go. Public health responses cannot completely ignore public opinion. In the case of Calgary’s mask bylaw, there’s also the question of how likely people would be to follow it if the provincial mandate is no longer in effect.

While Alberta’s COVID-19 situation seems to be trending in the right direction, March 1 is still a rather arbitrary date. There’s nothing to say that the masking mandate couldn’t end tomorrow, for example. Or, what’s to say we couldn’t keep it in place until the end of March?

The other factor policymakers need to consider is whether a mask mandate might need to be reintroduced at some point. Last summer, when Alberta last ditched the masking requirement, many skeptics were predicting that it would only be a matter of weeks before it was brought back. They weren’t far off.

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The answer, though, can’t be perpetual restrictions and mandates. A willingness to end such measures, even if done slightly prematurely, might buy enough goodwill to convince the public that they are needed again in the future.

The city and province may disagree on what might be sufficient to warrant a return to public health measures. Municipalities should still have the ability to introduce their own masking mandate if local circumstances demand it. The province’s flip-flop on this point seems rather political and any concerns about cities’ access to data could easily be rectified by sharing said data with cities.

Regardless of how one feels about the pending end of the mask mandate and other restrictions, I think we are all united in hoping that this goes well and that we can settle into a new, durable status quo. The virus, though, has already thrown too many curveballs at us to allow us to be overly confident or complacent.

There is clearly a significant amount of public fatigue with measures and restrictions, and it’s not unreasonable that that should guide decisions on these matters.

“Afternoons with Rob Breakenridge” airs weekdays 12:30-3 p.m. on 770CHQR and 2-3 p.m. on 630CHED rob.breakenridge@corusent.com  Twitter: @RobBreakenridge