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Four Lethbridge physicians calling for City Council to end local mask-wearing bylaw

LETHBRIDGE, AB – A group of Lethbridge doctors say the city’s mask-wearing bylaw is no longer needed.

City Council is expected to vote again on Tuesday, June 29th whether or not to scrap the local face-covering bylaw once Alberta fully re-opens this Thursday.

In a letter coming to Council the four physicians, all specialists in respiratory and critical care medicine, say they’re calling on “city leadership to reconsider their recent council vote to extend masking requirements until December.”

The docs say current evidence points to a great downturn in the number of cases and positivity rate for COVID-19 infections and there is no need to continue with the current city-wide, mask-wearing bylaw.

The letter also states given this data, the doctors are “surprised at the local resistance to embrace provincial-led initiatives for reopening.”

A repeal bylaw going to City Council on Tuesday says maintaining the current mask bylaw beyond just July 1, 2021 will cause confusion and mixed messaging and create greater division with the community.

Drs. Eric Wilde, P. L. Oviatt, Josh Henkelman, and Kurt Olson say locally, we presently have fewer than five total admitted cases of COVID-19 related illness in the Lethbridge Regional Hospital. Services have fully resumed for all facets of routine medical care.

“Clinically speaking, we rely on hard data to inform our decision-making processes. The current decision by Lethbridge City Council regarding ongoing masking is not reflecting the current status of the pandemic within our province or city, medically speaking,” say the four doctors.

You can read the doctors’ full letter to City Council here: Doctors Mask Letter

Patrick Siedlecki
Patrick Siedlecki
Pat has been a mainstay in the CJOC News department from the time the station launched in 2007. He's been in the position of News Director since then and has been anchoring daily news casts as well as reporting and working behind the scenes. Community is important to him and keeping CJOC listeners and readers informed about what's happening across southern Alberta and beyond. Pat has been in radio broadcasting for the past 24 years, starting in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in 1997 and then moving up island to Nanaimo for another few years before heading to Lethbridge in 2007. Pat grew up in the small Saskatchewan farming town of Foam Lake. After high school, he went to Western Academy Broadcasting College (WABC) in Saskatoon prior to moving to the island. Pat also spent several years broadcasting hockey in the BCHL as well as seven years as the radio voice of the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the WHL. Pat has been working at Cornerstone Funeral Home in Lethbridge as a Certified Life Celebrant and Funeral Assistant since 2016. News and sports have always been Pat's passion from the time he was a teenager and he's always been grateful to have had the opportunity to make that part of what's been a fun and long radio career!
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