By Daniyah Yaqoob
From sitting next to someone sneezing without covering their mouth to watching another cough into their hands before touching a high-contact surface, many Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students have witnessed strangers in shared spaces violating public health etiquette.
With the reported increase in respiratory illnesses during the fall and winter seasons, discussions about how people keep one another safe—and how much they care about the health of those around them—are re-entering the mainstream.
Anoja Thavarajah, a third-year creative industries student at TMU, said she feels “annoyed” when people in shared public spaces are openly sick and have not taken any physical precautions to keep germs contained.
“I think it’s just the fear of getting sick from [their actions],” Thavarajah said.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic’s peak in 2020, Thavarajah said she’s noticed some people have become more apathetic towards others’ health.
“On my bus, a lady was coughing in front of a girl and the girl was like, ‘Can you cough in your sleeve?’ The lady said, ‘No, I’m going to cough right in front of you’ and then coughed in her face,” Thavarajah recalled.
“Public health is a very community based thing”
Christopher Hodgins, a first-year occupational health and safety student, believes most people have split into two categories after the pandemic: those who are much more cautious about the impact of their sickness on others and those who think they’re now exempt from public health precautions.
“I think other people thought that COVID-19 was the only issue and now that they think the pandemic is over, they’re completely free,” he said. “Honestly, some people are even worse than before [the pandemic].”
Hodgins said some might still perform an at-home COVID-19 test if they are feeling sick. However, if the test results are negative, it’s possible to dismiss any serious concerns and not recognize that their illness can still be contagious even if it isn’t COVID-19.
A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan indicated that when in public, people may intentionally hide having an infectious disease for a variety of reasons.
“Infectious-disease concealment is motivated by personal and social reasons,” the study reads. “Such findings highlight the trade-offs people make between societally normative motives (e.g., honesty, not causing harm) and personally desirable motives (e.g., pursuing one’s goals, not worrying others).”
The study found approximately 75 per cent of American adult participants reported concealing infectious illness from others—many of them being university students.
“I think we should have an obligation, regardless of these people’s opinions, to protect each other”
Saffron Binder, a first-year public health student who suffered from long COVID for over a year, believes people concealing their sicknesses or ignoring how it could affect others is considered a violation of shared responsibility towards public health.
“I think we all have an obligation to each other to reduce illness whenever possible and to be responsible when we are sharing air with other people,” said Binder.
Recently, the University Health Network in Toronto changed its masking policy to make it mandatory for those receiving or waiting for care in their hospitals to wear a mask. On their site, they said this change—in place for the foreseeable future—is in response to the respiratory virus season to implement an “added layer of protection” against infection.
Binder, who wears an N95 mask when out in public, said such a mandate might also be beneficial for institutions like TMU.
“I absolutely believe that all institutions have an obligation to provide clean, safe air,” she said.
Though Thavarajah and Hodgins do not wear masks as regularly as Binder—Thavarajah said she wears one in small, crowded spaces—they also see the appeal of a temporary mask mandate during seasons of respiratory illness susceptibility.
Thavarajah said with exam season approaching, the last thing already stressed-out students would want is to get sick. She believes a temporary mask mandate would protect everyone from illness while mitigating concerns about skipping classes to avoid sickness.
Hodgins agreed that a mask mandate would be a “smart idea.”
“I think people would get a lot less sick,” Hodgins said, adding it’s “common sense” during colder months when people are more susceptible to falling ill.
Though many have returned to their pre-pandemic lifestyles and claim COVID-19 is “a thing of the past,” Binder said that the world is not in a post-pandemic era.
Public Health Ontario reported around 70 outbreaks of COVID-19 between Nov. 3 and Nov. 9 this year. 7 related deaths to the virus were also reported that same week. While numbers have decreased since the height of the pandemic, the virus continues to impact people’s lives.
“I absolutely believe that all institutions have an obligation to provide clean, safe air”
Binder said there is a lot of “propaganda” online suggesting COVID-19 is no longer an issue to pay attention to.
“That is very minimizing and really pushes this idea that COVID-19 is mild, that it’s just like the flu, even though it is way more deadly,” she said.
Binder has followed global COVID-19 pandemic updates in a detailed spreadsheet since early 2022. It includes the number of cases to various studies illustrating its severity and the further illnesses it can cause, such as long-term heart problems. She said she wanted to learn more about the pandemic to know how to better protect those around her—which later led her to study public health at TMU.
She believes the school should not just bring back a mask mandate—but they have the responsibility to provide high-quality N95 masks to their students while ensuring other precautionary measures like proper ventilation and high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters in all classrooms. Binder said that while TMU does offer the specialized masks, they should “advertise the availability of N95s better.”
A 2022 study in The Journal of Infectious Diseases found that “N95 masks that have passed a quantitative fit-test combined with HEPA filtration protects against high virus aerosol loads at close range.”
Especially in a school environment, Binder said mask protection is important to protect one another as well as oneself.
“I monitor the [carbon dioxide] in all my classrooms and it is bad [and unsafe] in some,” Binder said. “Which means that when you’re breathing…you’re breathing air that has been breathed by other people out of their lungs directly.”
The Eyeopener reached out to TMU for comment on ventilation concerns. In an emailed statement, the school’s Facilities Management and Development department said the health of all community members is a “top priority.”
The department also said the university’s current ventilation systems “inject fresh air into the return air and cycle it through filters to control CO2 levels and filter out impurities” and if students have concerns or complains, to contact the facilities help desk.
The social responsibility of protecting each other from sickness is a practice many at TMU can get behind, including fourth-year computer science student Irum Mahmood.
“Other people thought COVID-19 was the only issue and now that they think the pandemic is over, they’re completely free”
“I feel like it’s everyone’s responsibility to take care of each other. So it’s not just based on your own comfort at that point,” she said. “Public health is a very community-based thing.”
Binder even tied the importance of protecting each other from illness—strangers or not—to TMU’s broader mission for decolonization.
“Historically, colonization has used the weaponization of disease against a lot of different groups. And I think COVID-19 is a part of that as well,” she said. “We, as people who want to work towards decolonization, have an obligation not to [spread] disease.”
A 2023 research paper by Public Health Reports suggests personal preventive actions are the most sustainable method for stopping the spread of illness. Behaviours such as “hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette, self-isolation when symptomatic, wearing face masks and vaccination,” can mitigate infectious disease without stopping social activities.
“I think there are always going to be people who are resistant to public health measures and safety measures,” said Binder. “I think we should have an obligation, regardless of these people’s opinions, to protect each other.”
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