CALGARY -- The City of Calgary has partnered with the Province of Alberta to help distribute thousands of masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“Distribution of these face coverings will happen through a variety of partner channels, including Transit, Calgary Police Service, Calgary Housing and others through grassroots methods to get face coverings to those who need them,” a statement from the city says.
Some councillors say they will carry around masks and personally give them to Calgarians at events and in public. The city is also exploring whether to distribute the masks at libraries and recreation centres when the facilities are allowed to reopen on Friday.
It comes the same week the province started started distributing 20 million masks at A&W, McDonald’s and Tim Hortons drive-thrus.
That program hasn’t gone exactly according to plan. Some people say they asked for a single package of four masks when visiting one of the fast food restaurants, but were instead handed a bag of 40 masks without explanation.
“The McDonald’s I went to in #yyc is giving out a bag FULL of 10 packs of 4 masks and closing window before I could even correct them,” wrote Twitter user JulieEY.
The province says it is looking into the issue and is asking people not to hoard the masks if they are given too many.
“As I said when I first announced the initiative, I guess a few weeks ago, I made it very clear that we have to operate on the honour system,” said health minister Tyler Shandro Tuesday.
“It's only through, as an entire province, all of us complying with the Chief Medical Officer of Health orders that we've been successful to date.”
City officials haven’t released the number of masks that will be distributed on behalf of the province, but say more information will be released on Thursday afternoon.
