Signatory to doctors’ letter disappointed by new provincial COVID-19 measures

Family doctor Carla Holinaty says new measures introduced by the provincial government to contain the spread of COVID-19 were a start.

Those measures included making masks mandatory in communities with more than 5,000 people and in communities located near big cities. As well, the provincial government instituted a curfew on alcohol sales at bars and clubs, caps on group fitness and restrictions on hookah or waterpipe service.

The new restrictions came into effect Monday.

However, Holinaty was hoping for more.

“I had high hopes that we were going to get something more substantial, and something that sent a much more clear message about the seriousness of the situation that we currently find ourselves in,” she said during the Greg Morgan Morning Show on Monday.

“So I’m still hopeful that that’s coming, but I was a bit disappointed and a bit surprised that how little action there was.”

The physician is among 300 who have signed a second letter addressed to the province demanding more action to curb the spread of the virus.

This time, they are calling for a host of interventions, including making masks mandatory in indoor public spaces across the province regardless of population.

Holinaty found the province’s order on masks inadequate because the virus does not stop at a community’s border and does not discern how many people live in it.

She said a universal mask mandate would be an easy and inexpensive measure that could help keep schools and businesses open.

“I think that this sort of wishy-washy approach to masking isn’t helping with the confusion out there about how effective masking can be and why everyone should be doing it everywhere in the province, every time that they’re in a public space indoors,” Holinaty said.

The letter also calls for increasing testing capacity, deploying mobile testing teams, making sure contact tracing can be done in two days and pushing back against misinformation.

The doctors also call for closing down for 28 days businesses “that have been shown to play a significant role in the spread of COVID-19,” including bars, bingo halls, gyms and places of worship.

While not a requirement, the province is recommending school boards let high schools with 600 or more students move to Level 3 in their back-to-school plans, staggering attendance to make more room for physical distancing and making it easier to contact trace if necessary.

Holinaty was also hoping for consistency.

“What I would have preferred to see is some very firm provincial guidance here where we just mandated that all schools were doing the same thing to keep it consistent and to keep it clear for people and to help remove some of that confusion for why things might be different in one place than another,” she said.