(M)ask Me Anything

Wearing a mask indoors in public areas became mandatory in Toronto on July 7, 2020.

Bruce and I have been wearing masks indoors in public since the third week of April. Some people have been wearing them much longer than that. Remember the Great Mask Famine of February 2020? 

That was when selfish people were the ones who overreacted to the threat of the virus and secured PPE for themselves, forcing frontline workers to work without proper equipment.

In April, public health sources started tentatively suggesting that wearing a non-medical mask might keep contagious people from spreading the virus. But Theresa Tam, the federal Medical Officer of Health, wasn't sure that meant we should all wear one.

By May, she felt she finally had enough evidence to recommend, in a nice way, that, as locked down jurisdictions opened up, people should wear masks when they left their homes. 

And, sure enough, more and more medical research showed that containing ones' breath served, along with other measures like social distancing and hand washing, to curtail the spread.*

So, by mid-June, important rhetorical questions were being asked about whether or not mask wearing in public should be mandatory. 

Next came a game of political hot potato between Ontario cities and the province about which order of government should do the filthy business of regulation.

"You do it," said the municipalities to the province.

"No, you do it," said the province to the municipalities.

"We're just going to go ahead and do it," said the Toronto Transit Commission, which announced in June that masks would be mandatory on the TTC by July 2.

"OK, you win," said Toronto Mayor John Tory, and now we have a mask by-law.

Following fast on the TTC by-law was news coverage of people opposing mandatory masks.

Welcome to the human race, where people still smoke cigarettes (230,000 Canadian deaths a year), drink alcohol (15,000 Canadian deaths, 90,000 hospital admissions and 240,000 years of life lost) and take myriad other avoidable risks. 

But, you may be thinking, these are not analogous. Wearing a mask is not, like smoking and selfie-taking, a matter of personal choice. Masks are about collective action. OK. Maybe I should put it this way:

Welcome to the human race, where failures of collective action are commonplace. Some humans drink and drive, litter, and prefer to drink water out of disposable plastic bottles when there's no need to. 

They drive fossil-fuel-burning cars, too.

Because, freedom.

Thanks for reading!

Wear that mask!

Karen

A storm came out of nowhere on Wednesday and took down another 
chunk of the silver maple at the south east corner of the Allan Gardens. 
Not the first time that's happened.

*A short list of recent research:

Rothe C, Schunk M, Sothmann P, et al. Transmission of 2019-nCoV Infection from an Asymptomatic Contact in Germany. The New England journal of medicine. 2020;382(10):970-971. PMID: 32003551

Zou L, Ruan F, Huang M, et al. SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in Upper Respiratory Specimens of Infected Patients. The New England journal of medicine. 2020;382(12):1177-1179. PMID: 32074444

Pan X, Chen D, Xia Y, et al. Asymptomatic cases in a family cluster with SARS-CoV-2 infection. The Lancet Infectious diseases. 2020. PMID: 32087116

Bai Y, Yao L, Wei T, et al. Presumed Asymptomatic Carrier Transmission of COVID-19. Jama. 2020. PMID: 32083643

Kimball A HK, Arons M, et al. Asymptomatic and Presymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections in Residents of a Long-Term Care Skilled Nursing Facility — King County, Washington, March 2020. MMWR Morbidity and mortality weekly report. 2020; ePub: 27 March 2020. PMID: 32240128

Wei WE LZ, Chiew CJ, Yong SE, Toh MP, Lee VJ. Presymptomatic Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 — Singapore, January 23–March 16, 2020. MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 2020;ePub: 1 April 2020. PMID: 32271722

Li R, Pei S, Chen B, et al. Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV2). Science (New York, NY). 2020. PMID: 32179701

Furukawa NW, Brooks JT, Sobel J. Evidence Supporting Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 While Presymptomatic or Asymptomatic [published online ahead of print, 2020 May 4]. Emerg Infect Dis. 2020;26(7):10.3201/eid2607.201595.

Oran DP, Topol Prevalence of Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Narrative Review [published online ahead of print, 2020 Jun 3]. Ann Intern Med. 2020;M20-3012. PMID: 32491919

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Rapid Expert Consultation on the Possibility of Bioaerosol Spread of SARS-CoV-2 for the COVID-19 Pandemic (April 1, 2020). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25769

Schwartz KL, Murti M, Finkelstein M, et al. Lack of COVID-19 transmission on an international flight. CMAJ. 2020;192(15):E410. PMID: 32392504

Anfinrud P, Stadnytskyi V, Bax CE, Bax A. Visualizing Speech-Generated Oral Fluid Droplets with Laser Light Scattering. N Engl J Med. 2020 Apr 15. doi:10.1056/NEJMc2007800. PMID: 32294341

Davies A, Thompson KA, Giri K, Kafatos G, Walker J, Bennett A. Testing the efficacy of homemade masks: would they protect in an influenza pandemic? Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2013;7(4):413-8. PMID: 24229526

Konda A, Prakash A, Moss GA, Schmoldt M, Grant GD, Guha S. Aerosol Filtration Efficiency of Common Fabrics Used in Respiratory Cloth Masks. ACS Nano. 2020 Apr 24. PMID: 32329337

Aydin O, Emon B, Saif MTA. Performance of fabrics for home-made masks against spread of respiratory infection through droplets: a quantitative mechanistic study. medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.19.20071779, posted April 24, 2020.

Ma QX, Shan H, Zhang HL, Li GM, Yang RM, Chen JM. Potential utilities of mask-wearing and instant hand hygiene for fighting SARS-CoV-2. J Med Virol. 2020. PMID: 32232986

Leung, N.H.L., Chu, D.K.W., Shiu, E.Y.C. et al.Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks. Nat Med. 2020. PMID: 32371934