Shomporko Desk:-Several dozen people accumulated at Vancouver’s Jack Poole Plaza for a protest against mandatory mask policies.
British Columbia doesn’t have any regulations requiring mandatory masks in public places, however, some private businesses do expect clients to wear them.
March to Unmask organizer Ryan Kulbaba told participants he dreaded the province could imitate different locales, for example, Toronto, that have passed standing rules expecting individuals to wear masks in indoor public places and on transit.
Protesters conveyed signs comparing cover wearing to one-party rule, calling COVID-19 a fraud and advocating “hugs over masks.”
“We are saying my body, my choice, my immune system, I have the right to choose for myself,” Kulbaba told the crowd.
“I’m not anti-mask, I wear a mask 24/7, it’s called an immune system.”
One attendee told that wearing a mask causes cancer, an assertion with no scientific evidence.
Others said information about masks coming from the media and health officials as part of a global conspiracy to create a world government.
Non-medical masks do not protect the wearer from COVID-19.
Medical experts say masks work by capturing droplets people exhale, preventing potentially infectious viral particles from spreading to other people.
Dr. Jason Kindrachuk, a University of Manitoba assistant medical microbiology professor and Canada research chair who studies infectious diseases and viruses told Global News the anti-mask movement is “not based in reality,” following a similar rally in Winnipeg.
“Masks ultimately will help prevent a certain amount of the virus from being transmitted, in particular from those people that either are asymptomatically infected or in the presymptomatic stages of an infection when we know they can transmit, but they don’t notice or have any obvious overt symptoms,” he said.
The B.C. Centre for Disease Control also says masks can play a preventive role for people who have very mild symptoms or who don’t yet realize they are infected and can spread the virus.
A number of myths by mask opponents have also been widely debunked.
Doctors say masks do not decrease oxygen intake, increase toxin inhalation, shut down a person’s immune system or increase virus risk.
Protesters held similar rallies in Montreal, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton and other Canadian cities.
Photo credit: CTV
News source: Global News
