Calgary mask bylaw back at council today

CALGARY – Calgarians could soon learn when the city plans to lift its mask mandate.

The topic is scheduled to come up during Monday’s council meeting.

My thoughts on Calgary's Face Coverings Bylaw, which is being debated at Monday's Council meeting. #yyccc pic.twitter.com/RFz3KEv092

— George Chahal (@ChahalGeorge) July 2, 2021

At least two city councillors will be voting to keep the mask mandate on Monday.

Ward 5’s George Chahal has released a statement explaining why he’s going to vote to keep the mask bylaw in place until the end of July.

He cites the Delta variant and the Stampede which starts a week from Friday.

Chahal says wearing masks indoors is the smallest price we can pay to help prevent Calgarians from revisiting more restrictive measures in the event of a fourth wave.

Ward 7’s Druh Farrell also said she’d be voting in favour of keeping the mask bylaw in place a while longer. Ward 11’s Jeromy Farkas said he’d be voting to get rid of the bylaw.

While the province had most of its masking requirements dropped Thursday, the city said it will be making its own decision.

That drew criticism from the premier who said council should stop listening to “angry voices on Twitter.”

RELATED:

• Kenney: Calgary’s continuing mask bylaw will create confusion
• Mask mandate to end in Banff Thursday
• Edmonton votes to end mask bylaw for indoor public places on Canada Day

Mayor Naheed Nenshi mentioned in June that the city’s mask mandate would likely be dropped within a matter of weeks after the province.

Some experts have recommended keeping the masks for a while longer, especially with how dangerous the delta variant is to those with just one dose, many of whom are young frontline workers.

“Not everybody’s had an opportunity to have a second dose or critically, to have enough time after a second dose to develop full immunity. So there is still a need for additional public health measures on top of vaccination,” explained Dr. Craig Jenne, associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Calgary, in a previous interview with CityNews.

“Not only is it easy, it’s something we’ve been doing for almost a year now. So this is not asking people to take on any additional burden. And by maintaining things such as masking indoors, we can get to opening some of these other activities in the community. So it’s a bit of trade-off, if we want things open, we need to limit the risk of viral spread.”

RELATED:

• Experts recommend wearing a mask despite Alberta’s reopening
• Canada’s top doctor can’t say when we can ditch the mask
• ‘Free of the mask’: Businesses taking cautious approach to Alberta’s full reopening

Jenne told CityNews at the time that he’d like to see the mask mandate in effect until everyone in Alberta who wants second dose immunity gets it.

Meantime, Canada’s top doctor, Theresa Tam, says she’s unsure of when Canada would be ready to ditch the face coverings.

“I think we do have to be quite cautious because the provinces are just beginning to open up and we will then see what happens,” she said earlier this week, adding that she’d like to see a higher vaccination rate before moving forward.

“Even though we have a good first dose coverage, we still need to, I think, go a bit higher. And quite a number of people haven’t had the full vaccination, so this is a period, I think, that we should be more cautious.”

Some countries, such as Israel, have been forced to bring back their mask mandates after prematurely getting rid of them.

-with files from Stefanie Lasuik and Cormac Mac Sweeney