After two years of growing accustomed to seeing only half of everyone’s faces, Ontarians now have the option to choose if they wish to continue wearing a mask in most indoor settings.
Ontario lifted its mask mandate Monday for gyms, restaurants, retail stores and elementary and secondary schools.
The mandate remains in place for public transit, healthcare services, theatres, shelters, retirement homes, and jails.
Private businesses are able to set their own rules, as can College and Universities.
Humber College will keep its mask mandate in place until May 2.
That has many students feeling relieved.
“I need to feel safe when I’m learning,” said second-year computer programming student, Austin Melo.
“Knowing that Humber kept the mandate tells me that they care for the safety of their students”
He will be graduating in less than a month and is relieved that he doesn’t need to spend those final weeks with the added stress
“Ironically, it’s a breath of fresh air,” said Melo.
He also said that he is petrified of exposing his family to the virus as he lives with a family of five – one of those members being his immunocompromised grandmother.
“My family and I still are anxious for this mask lifting. It’s great that we’re still required to wear a mask at Humber but my brother and sister in elementary were surrounded by people without masks.”
Humber says the decision to keep the mask mandate in place was based on recommendations from Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kieran Moore.
“We’ve wanted to provide some reassurance to folks, people made decisions about coming to campus or registering for this term based on a certain set of assumptions. So we wanted to continue to provide them with that same environment,” said Emily Milic, Humber’s Associate Director of Communications.
She adds depending on the day of the week, Humber North Campus sees between 4,100 – 7,500 daily. Lakeshore campus, on the other hand, is between 2,600 – 5,000.
First-year food and nutrition student Eric Mimosa thinks masks have become part of our everyday lives.
“I’m sick of wearing a mask, I think everyone is, but even if Humber did remove the mask mandate, I would still be wearing one.”
She says masks have been one of the leading deterrents of COVID-19 spread over the past two years.
Mimosa considers removing the requirement to wear masks as a spike waiting to happen, “and then we’ll hear about cases rising, and then boom, all of a sudden the mask mandate is back”.
Mimosa compares masks to protective gear, “you don’t wear shin guards expecting to fall, you wear them in case of a fall”.