With mask mandates easing, experts say choosing to wear one may be seen as making a statement – CTV
March 10, 2022
As provinces remove mask mandates across much of the country, experts say choosing to wear a face covering could be seen as a political statement, with the responsibility to protect Canadians against COVID-19 shifting to individual responsibility rather than a collective effort guided by public health measures.
Kerry Bowman, a bioethicist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine, told CTVNews.ca that the ethics behind mask wearing have “really shifted” with the lifting of mandates.
Bowman said in a telephone interview Thursday this could lead to increased tensions between individual Canadians, as well as the general public and governments.
“So much of what we’ve done until recently is protecting the most vulnerable within society, and I’m not saying we’ve given up on that, but we’ve really shifted, from an ethical point of view, to protecting the most vulnerable collectively to individual responsibility,” Bowman said.
