By Michelle Gamage
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Masks are back for British Columbia’s healthcare sector.

The province said it had reintroduced masking requirements for all health-care workers, volunteers, contractors, patients and visitors.

The masking requirements will last for the duration of the respiratory season, which usually ends once the weather improves in the spring.

Masks will be required “in areas where patients are actively receiving care, except when eating and/or drinking,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.

This will apply to health authority-operated facilities, including emergency departments, waiting rooms, hospitals, long-term care and assisted living, outpatient clinics and ambulatory care settings. Residents in long-term care and assisted living must wear a mask over their nose and mouth.

Patients and visitors must wear masks and other personal protective equipment when directed by health-care workers.

Masking is not required for visitors when they are visiting directly with one resident in a patient-care area, a communal area or a private or shared room.

“Any person that comes to a health-care facility for medical care” will still receive care if they refuse to wear a mask.

The ministry said masking requirements are a “regular” tool used occasionally to curb the spread of respiratory illnesses during cold and flu season.

Currently in B.C. influenza and RSV cases are “increasing” while COVID-19 cases are “stable but showing early signs of an increase,” the ministry said.

Dr. Lyne Filiatrault, a retired emergency physician and member of the Canadian Aerosol Transmission Coalition, was critical of B.C.’s move to introduce masking after the holidays.

She said masking should have been reintroduced in November when cases were low and the province was preparing to head into cold and flu season. She pointed to reporting by the BC Centre for Disease Control that shows cases for illnesses like the flu, RSV, and enterovirus/rhinovirus sharply starting to rise for all ages in late November, following patterns similar to the previous year.

Filiatrault said the BCCDC’s data shows pediatric illnesses started to spike in September and have been growing ever since, with this December surpassing total cases of illness from last December.

“This should have been done in the fall — it’s reactive and not proactive,” Filiatrault said.

Australia and South America, which have their cold and flu season during Canada’s summer, showed a particularly worrying flu season, she added.

When it comes to RSV infections, Filiatrault said, “we set ourselves up for failure.”

She said Health Canada recently approved RSV vaccines for seniors and preventive treatments for children and pregnant people, but B.C. has not made these protections widely available.

In Quebec and Ontario, infants have access to a free preventive treatment that will protect them from RSV for a season.

This protection acts similarly to a vaccine but delivers the immunity differently.

B.C. will be offering this protection to certain infants and young children who are at highest risk, including premature babies with chronic medical conditions, infants with major heart or lung conditions and infants in some remote communities where health-care access is limited.

Ontario is offering a vaccine against RSV to residents who are 32 to 36 weeks pregnant, which will protect the infant from birth to around six months of age.

Quebec and B.C. are also offering the RSV vaccine to pregnant people but not for free. In B.C. the vaccine costs $300.

Quebec is also offering free RSV vaccines to people aged 60 and over in long-term care facilities and intermediate resources facilities, which offer a few hours a day of support for semi-autonomous seniors, and others who benefit due to illness or disability.

Ontario similarly offers free vaccines for people 60 and over who are in long-term care or in hospital, are receiving dialysis, have received transplants, are experiencing homelessness or are First Nations, Inuit or Métis.

“Infections are bad — we need to get back to that,” Filiatrault said. “We’re better off having vaccines, particularly now we know so much about the long-term consequences of infections.”

An RSV infection early in life can increase a person’s risk of developing asthma and may increase their risk of moderate to severe illness requiring antibiotics throughout the rest of their childhood, she said.