On March 28, 2025, BC abruptly dropped existing mask requirements in healthcare settings, disregarding guidance from doctors, researchers, and BC’s Human Rights Commissioner. The move also shut out the voices of many vulnerable British Columbians, who in the last couple weeks have sent over 7,000 messages calling to maintain and strengthen healthcare mask protections.

BC claims the downgrade was due to the end of "respiratory illness season" - yet NACI and the CDC both state COVID is not seasonal and can surge throughout the year. The move comes while BC continues to experience ongoing COVID circulation and multiple outbreaks of influenza and norovirus in healthcare settings, alongside warnings about surging measles, tuberculosis, and the pandemic potential of H5N1 avian influenza.

Let us be clear: vulnerability isn’t seasonal, and there is no acceptable level of avoidable infection in healthcare. Downgrading or discarding existing safety measures can only lead to more illness, disability, deaths, staff shortages, care delays, and healthcare costs. It is contrary to the scientific evidence, and to the rights of all people (particularly those most vulnerable) to safely access healthcare.

We call on BC policy-makers to:

1. Immediately restore healthcare mask requirements and maintain them year-round. Prevention should be proactive, not reactive, especially as illnesses like COVID-19 and measles can spread before symptoms and are not seasonal. (In fact, COVID has risen over the summer for three years straight.)
   
   
2. Provide clear direction to all health authorities on concrete steps to enact mask requirements by requiring hospital admin to direct managers on implementation; posting signage; making masks available; and designating staff members responsible for informing and monitoring staff, visitors, and patients.
   
   
3. Increase usage of N95-equivalent masks or better (a.k.a. respirators), which provide superior protection as the only masks rated to properly protect against airborne illnesses. Clearly communicate the federal and international scientific consensus that COVID-19 is airborne, and follow the European model in making N95-equivalent masks a default choice for high-risk settings, ensuring all who wish to wear a respirator (or request it of their healthcare providers) can do so.
   
   
4. Close gaps in prior rules by requiring patients to mask (with reasonable exceptions) and providing N95-equivalent masks for potential airborne illnesses; ensuring mask coverage in shared locations like foyers and hallways (where patients often need to wait); and directing privately-run healthcare settings to meet the same minimum mask requirements as government-run facilities.

Why this matters:

• Year-round risks: BC’s spring vaccination campaign underscores the risks COVID poses year round. In contrast to BC’s messaging about the supposed end of “respiratory illness season”, NACI states that "seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 has not been established”, while the CDC has emphasized it can surge throughout the year. Other illnesses like measles and tuberculosis are also rising, both in Canada and globally.

• Patient safety: Gaps in infection control put patients at greater risk, particularly in high-risk settings like ERs, cancer centres, children’s hospitals and long-term care. Hospital-acquired COVID-19 is at least 70 times more deadly than COVID contracted in the community, while influenza and norovirus outbreaks, measles warnings, and Canada’s first hospitalization from H5N1 underscore the rising risks from other communicable diseases.

• Worker protection: Healthcare workers face the highest rates of workplace COVID claims, while a single case of H5N1 potentially exposed 60 healthcare workers. Interior Health was recently fined over $270,000 for exposing workers to a noxious unknown hazard without recommended PPE, highlighting the need for improved communication around appropriate respiratory protection.

• Accessibility: Multiple polls show 85-91% of respondents must delay healthcare due to lack of safety measures. British Columbians have sent tens of thousands of messages so far calling for masks in healthcare - a particularly pressing need for Indigenous, racialized, disabled, 2SLBTQIA+ and lower-income communities, who continue to face disproportionate harm from illnesses like COVID-19.

• A necessary layer: Hand hygiene does not address transmission through the air. Both measles and COVID can spread before obvious symptoms, meaning symptom-based risk assessments alone are insufficient. While vaccination is vital, it doesn’t fully prevent COVID infections or long-term health impacts, and offers less protection for many immunocompromised people. BC’s failure to order the Novavax protein vaccine also means some vulnerable people cannot get a COVID vaccine at all. Masks are a low-cost, high-impact safety tool that should be used alongside these other measures to help close the gaps.

• An evidence-based solution: Studies show resumption of staff masking is associated with a 33% decrease in hospital-onset respiratory viral infections, while N95 masks reduce exhaled viral load by 98%. One study demonstrated that upgrading to N95 masks in COVID wards reduced healthcare worker infections by up to 100%. A study on SARS-CoV-1 co-authored by BC’s current Provincial Health Officer found that “Consistently wearing a mask…was protective for the nurses”, and that “[r]isk was lower with consistent use of a N95 mask than with consistent use of a surgical mask.”

• Protecting our healthcare system and reducing costs: Preventing healthcare-acquired infections can help reduce surgery delays and longer, far costlier hospitalizations. It also avoids unnecessary staff shortages caused by acute or long-term illness. Canada’s Office of the Chief Science Advisor emphasizes that preventing COVID infection is also key to preventing Long COVID: a long-term condition that is not only life-altering for many COVID survivors, but causes profound impacts to health systems and economies.

“If there is one space that all vulnerable people should be able to rely on to prioritize their safety, it is in healthcare settings… removal of universal masking directives in healthcare settings does not uphold a human rights centered approach to public health.”

• BC Human Rights Commissioner

Other ways to take action:

👉 Flood the lines with calls - phone calls and messages can have a massive impact! Use our phone script to make it easier.

👉 Write letters to the editor to media outlets who've covered the supposed end of "respiratory illness season". Even a few sentences is helpful, and feel free to pull facts or wording from our campaign.

👉 Hold health authorities accountable too. Both Vancouver Coastal Health and the Provincial Health Services Authority have public meetings in April - register to ask VCH questions by phone (before April 2), email questions to PHSA (by April 15) or even apply to do a public presentation to the PHSA board (by April 2). Other health authorities have public meetings slated for June!

👉 Request a meeting with your MLA (can be done via phone or Zoom). Use our fact sheets or share the stories of other British Columbians! We also encourage people to speak up through political surveys and other avenues - and for people to report unsafe workplaces, which can be done anonymously.

👉 Send postcards - mail to Ministers and MLAs is free, and past postcard campaigns have been instrumental in getting masks restored before!

👉 Send free faxes online - use our template letter here.