Nova Scotia pharmacies continuing to prescribe mask use

A pharmacist in Baddeck, N.S., is keeping his mask mandate in place for staff and customers. He isn't alone.

"We deal with nursing homes, we deal with people with immune issues that would not do well with the virus," Graham MacKenzie, owner of Stone's Pharmasave, said on Monday.

"So, as long as it's still a threat, then we're just going to maintain that."

On Monday, the province's state of emergency ended. A mask mandate was lifted for most indoor settings except for places such as courts, provincial jails, nursing homes, hospitals and other health-care settings.

The Nova Scotia government didn't include pharmacies on its list of places where masks must continue to be worn.

But the Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia considers pharmacies to be health-care settings. It is strongly recommending that its members keep their mask rules in place.

MacKenzie, whose pharmacy has provided more than 8,000 COVID-19 vaccines in the past year, didn't need any convincing.

"With this [Omicron] variant, I'm sure it's not going to cause a huge issue with the majority of the people that get it, but in the business like I'm in, which is health care, we're always looking out for the other person," he said.

"There are many, many thousands of them out there in Nova Scotia alone that would not do well with this virus. We're just protecting them."

Diane Harpell is chair of the Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia and owns the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy in Dartmouth.

She said she doesn't know how long the association's masking recommendation will continue.

"We sort of go week by week on our decisions, but I can see masking in health-care settings being something in place for quite a while to come," said Harpell, adding that masks protect people from many infections.

"We've had the benefit of being masked and keeping our staff healthy from a lot of things that you run into, whether it's flu, stomach bugs, just common cold, and of course, COVID."

She said that she'd received no negative feedback on her pharmacy's mask mandate on Monday. In fact, Harpell said her customers were masked before they saw her sign saying that they have to wear one.

"I stand right by the front door when I'm working and they're not looking at the sign," she said. "And they've already got their mask on when they've approached, so I think it's a decision that's being made before they arrive."

Harpell said people seem to understand that pharmacies are health-care settings that need to be protected.

"We're prescribing, we're assessing, we're doing all sorts of different primary care services for Nova Scotians," she said.

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