U of M ends campus mask mandate May 1

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This article was published 24/04/2023 (867 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The University of Manitoba is ending its mask mandate — one of the last such policies that remains in the province and country at large — as of next week.

Beginning May 1, the start of the school’s summer term, face coverings will be recommended rather than required on all university sites.

“This mandate helped keep our community safe while vaccines were rolled out, and while hospitals were under the greatest strain,” Michael Benarroch, president and vice-chancellor, said in a community update Monday.

U of M has been mindful that its most vulnerable community members have carried and continue to carry more of the COVID-19 pandemic burden than the majority, he said, adding that is why it is one of the last institutions in the country to end the directive.

Benarroch noted the university will keep supplying masks because it will “strongly encourage” they be worn indefinitely, especially in indoor spaces that do not allow for distancing.

U of M became an outlier last summer when senior administration announced their policy on well-fitting masks would remain in place in 2022-23, unlike other Manitoba campuses and virtually all other public spaces that lifted public-health precautions about five months earlier.

It was the only post-secondary institute on the Prairies and sole member of the U15, a group of Canada’s top research-intensive universities, to come to that conclusion.

The faculty association’s stance is that it’s hard to assess whether this is the right move, given the province stopped publishing data about the prevalence of the virus a long time ago.

Health sociologist Christopher Fries, however, applauded his employer’s decision to “play it safe” longer than others.

“I think the time has come to lift it, and I think the preponderance of evidence suggests that, too,” said the associate professor, who noted the current pandemic phase is less acute, vaccinations are widely available and pre-existing immunity levels are high.

Throughout the pandemic, U of M has spent about $105,000 annually on contracting additional officers to bolster its internal security services team to hand out face coverings and encourage compliance.

Only residence employees had the power to issue fines — six of which, each valued at $100, were distributed to individuals who breached the campus living mask policy in 2019-20 and 2021-22.

“It was getting harder and harder to enforce it. More and more people would put a mask on, walk past a security guard, and then take it off,” said Jaron Rykiss, outgoing president of the undergraduate students’ union better known as UMSU.

UMSU’s latest membership survey, undertaken in January, did not yield a strong endorsement on either side of the debate.

Its approximately 1,300 respondents indicated their biggest COVID-19-related concerns regarding the return to campus were the commute to and from classes, mental-health challenges and the transition from online learning.

The largest chunk of students — 45 per cent — indicated they supported a continued mask mandate, and 29 per cent of them opposed it. A quarter of participants disclosed that they did not care either way.

“Mandate or not, if you trust the science, which I believe all people should, masks do keep you safe, and they keep those around you safe but in the end, it will be up to individual students to make the choice for themselves,” Rykiss said.

The student leader added Benarroch has indicated he will not hesitate to reinstate a mandate should there be reason to do so, but it would be incredibly difficult to get community members back on board.

Orvie Dingwall, president of the faculty association, said she hopes the lessons learned throughout the pandemic are not forgotten in the months and years to come.

The importance of staying home when sick, academic accommodations and good ventilation will not disappear when the mask mandate does, Dingwall said.

The union, which represents about 1,200 academics and librarians, is calling on U of M administration to ensure air quality in all of its buildings is up to international standards and testing processes are made publicly available.

“(The onset of the pandemic) was a really consequential event that did profoundly change the culture, so I would expect, as a health sociologist, that that could have lasting consequences in terms of health behaviours and health beliefs,” Fries said. “But what those actually will be, that remains to be seen.”

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie