University of Saskatchewan professor pushes to reinstate campus mask mandate

Dr. Stephen Urquhart said many factors listed in a University of Saskatchewan pandemic response team report from June that led to the mask pause are no longer true.

A chemistry professor at the University of Saskatchewan is suggesting reimplementing the COVID-19 mask requirement after comparing the factors that were used to pause the mask mandate to the current situation.

Stephen Urquhart said that the university’s pandemic response team presented a report back in June suggesting a pause in the mask mandate, with a number of factors given that informed the team’s recommendation.

He said many of the things listed in the report are no longer true, and there hasn’t been a reason given as to why a mask mandate hasn’t been reinstated.

“It hasn’t been clearly communicated why the mask mandate hasn’t returned, and one of the reasons I put myself out there is to encourage the administration to return to a mask requirement on campus,” Urquhart said.

He said that the university community can use the report as a benchmark to evaluate the current pause, and that he recently published an article that set out the factors to compare. By doing that, the university would see evidence to support the return of a mask mandate.

Urquhart said the article has received a “huge response” from colleagues and students on campus.

The report said provincial COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations were decreasing, but Urquhart pointed out that there have been successive increases in hospital and ICU admissions in the province.

Another factor listed in the report said that pressures on the health-care system were decreasing, but it was noted that over the summer the Saskatchewan Health Authority reported a series of disruptions to emergency services across the province.