The region’s chief doctor supports the rights of business owners to require customers to wear masks while in their stores.
Local, provincial and federal officials are now asking, for the sake of public health, people to wear a mask, but also to keep your distance and wash your hands.
And while it’s not a widespread law, the rule is more serious in some places, like at Bradford Greenhouses on Highway 26, where customers may not enter the store without a mask. The store is handing out masks at the door if customers don't have their own.
Simcoe-Muskoka’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Charles Gardner, said if businesses wish to make that demand of their customers, it’s their right.
“I do know all things can be contentious,” said Gardner, noting he’s aware of groups protesting the concept on the basis of personal freedoms.
“We are now recommending that people use homemade masks … when going into locations in which they cannot be assured that they can physically distance,” said Gardner, noting that can include shopping locations and public transit.
“You could argue that stores that are (requiring masks and handing them out at the door) are enabling people to take that precaution," said Gardner. "And so far it remains their right to require it.”
He specified members of the public should only be wearing non-medical masks, and shouldn’t be trying to buy and wear N-95 or surgical masks.
“We’re trying to retain those for health-care workers because there’s a short supply,” said Gardner.
A homemade mask does not, however, do what the health-care masks are made to do.
“The evidence shows that if (homemade masks are) helpful, they’re helpful in preventing transmission from the wearer to other people and not the other way around,” said Gardner.
As such, he stresses mask-wearing must be one piece of a larger effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“It needs to be part of the bigger package,” said Gardner.
Individually, people should be focused on handwashing, and making sure if they’re wearing a mask, they are careful about how they put it on and take it off to avoid contamination.
He also said wearing a mask is no substitute for maintaining a two-metre distance between yourself and people outside your household.
“We wouldn’t want this to be a false reassurance for people to then allow them to relax those other controls,” said Gardner. “I would say that people need to be careful about shopping in general.”
He said it’s important to choose carefully when and how often you shop, to condense trips into fewer outings and to wear a mask if you’re going somewhere you’re unsure will provide enough space for physical distancing at all times.
He said to wash your hands before and after shopping, and even during if you can keep some hand sanitizer with you while you shop.
“I would put forward that (stores) need to do all the other physical-distancing measures as well," said Gardner.
Those measures, he said, would include limiting the number of people in the store at one time, having one-way aisles and two-metre distances marked, and plexiglass barriers for the cashiers.
He also recommended staff working in those environments should be wearing masks.
You can learn more about how to wear a mask safely with tips from the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit website.
Gardner also offers this advice via video for protecting yourself from acquiring or transmitting the virus:
