Albertans the least likely to voluntarily mask indoors: poll

It has been two weeks since Alberta lifted the majority of its COVID-19 public health measures, including mandatory masking, and a new poll suggests people living in the province are the least likely in the country to continue to do so indoors.

The Angus Reid Institute found 73 per cent of Canadians support wearing a mask in a public indoor spaces, but only 50 cent would continue to do so voluntarily. 

Support drops in Alberta to 41 per cent for people likely to continue to mask inside around strangers, the lowest in Canada. 

Albertans were also the least likely in the country to keep social distancing, avoid large gatherings, not shake hands or hug people, or refrain from travelling abroad.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Craig Jenne says masking is still an important measure to stop the spread of COVID-19 and recommends it for some situations, like at large indoor gatherings.

"When you are indoors in tight spaces and large numbers of people outside your cohort, it’s still a good idea to wear that mask,” Jenne said.

Jenne says though hospitalization numbers are slowly coming down, there is still phenomenal strain on the health care system

"I think we’ve made some huge progress over the last year – or even six months – that is allowing us to get back to life as close to normal as we’ve seen now in two years," he said.

"We have to do our part over the next three, four, five months to ensure we keep numbers as low as possible."

Nationally, the poll found the majority of Canadians will continue to take precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, with two-thirds planning to keep sanitizing their hands and three-in-five planning to continue social distancing.

When asked if the removal of restrictions were happening too quickly, there was no unified national consensus in the poll; two-in-five people in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Atlantic Canada believed their provincial government was moving too quickly.

Residents living in Alberta and Manitoba were also overwhelmingly critical of their respective premiers’ handling of the pandemic since it started.

Canadians are still required to be fully vaccinated to travel to the United States, which 70 per cent of Canadians polled agreed with, with the exception of Albertans who are least likely to support the full vaccine requirements to travel internationally.

Politics does appear to play a role in a person’s support of masking or vaccine passports, with the poll finding those who voted for the Conservative Party of Canada in the past much less likely to support restrictions.

The Angus Reid Institute poll surveyed 2,550 adult Canadians (including 256 Albertans) online between March 1 and 4, 2022. Angus Reid says a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.