Health

Is the official Omicron paranoia overblown? Frustration, fatigue overtake fear of 'doomsday' warnings – National Post

Published

3 years ago

December 17, 2021

‘They are making statistically correct assumptions by not panicking when a new variant causes more infections, but no spike in severe illness and death’

Author of the article:

Sharon Kirkey

Publishing date:

Dec 17, 2021 • 4 hours ago • 5 minute read • 392 Comments

“The same rerun has been playing for 21 months. We’re living through a phenomenon that risk experts might call a boring apocalypse.“ Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

Omicron will likely usher in the worst wave of the pandemic yet, some scientists are warning. But have people grown frustrated, tired and even bored with the “doomsday” messaging?

The speed at which Omicron is spreading and the variant’s intimidating attack rate means people will need to cut their personal contacts by at least 50 per cent in order to buy time for more booster vaccines and “blunt” — and only blunt, and not “flatten” — the coming wave, Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, head of Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory table, said Thursday.

“I believe we can do this without closing schools or shutting down businesses that have suffered during previous waves,” Brown said. “But it will take serious restrictions that reduce contacts.”

The grim modelling predicting up to 10,000 daily cases in Ontario by the end of December without a “circuit breaker” was presented just one day after the federal government advised against non-essential international travel. In Atlantic Canada, restrictions are being tightened and school breaks extended, while in British Columbia, the province’s health minister is encouraging residents to think hard about even domestic travel.

The Omicron story is fluid and fast-moving: France on Thursday shut out tourists from the United Kingdom, where COVID is flourishing, and Brown shared graphs showing the variant’s spread in several other European countries. Omicron is “still able to find people and have serious consequences,” he said. “It’s not just a case of the sniffles.”

But while cases in South Africa have rapidly taken off, and hospitalizations are trending up, the rise in deaths is less steep than in previous waves. Early data released this week suggest that while Omicron is able to escape some past immunity from vaccines and prior infections, hospital admissions among infected adults are 29 per cent lower than what they were in South Africa’s first COVID wave, fewer people are requiring oxygen therapy and hospital stays are shorter.

While acknowledging that “uncertainty persists,” Brown said that, even if Omicron were 29 per cent less severe, the decrease would have to be much greater to make up for the variant’s hyper-contagiousness in order to avoid straining intensive care capacity. Omicron’s reproductive number — the number of people each infected person goes on to infect — is 4.55, the highest yet seen, Brown said.

No one is saying let Omicron run rampant. Canada this week surpassed 30,000 COVID-related deaths. Healthcare workers are exhausted or burned out from earlier surges. “But many people aren’t so afraid of COVID-19 anymore, complicating public health authorities’ efforts to slow Omicron’s spread,” Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist wrote this week in The New York Times.

“We’ve all seen this horror movie before, and when you’ve watched the killer jump out brandishing a weapon 10 times — even when you’ve watched him kill — it just doesn’t freak you out the same way,” Grant wrote. “The same rerun has been playing for 21 months. We’re living through a phenomenon that risk experts might call a boring apocalypse.“

When COVID first revealed itself to the world, “no doubt its novelty was part of what made it scary,” Derek Koehler, a professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo said in an email. “The idea of a global pandemic sounded like something from a horror film.” While he wonders how much people have really become desensitized to SARS-CoV-2, “we’ve lived through it, or at least part of it, so it makes sense that some of that fear has been replaced by fatigue, frustration or even boredom.”

The rolling waves, the ever-changing guidance on what’s allowed, discouraged and then allowed again, has had people living in a state of constant flux, Koehler said, and the human brain loathes uncertainty.

“If we do see a decrease in compliance with public health guidance in response to Omicron, it could be because people feel less fearful about COVID than they did a year ago. But fatigue, frustration and a sense that the pandemic will never end might be larger contributors.”

Our species … thrived in the wake of actual catastrophes that were much, much worse than COVID

But individually, and as a society, “we might also think about the price we have already paid” in battling COVID, Koehler said. “Letting down our guard now might feel as if it undoes those earlier sacrifices.”

The problem isn’t so much that people have become too relaxed, said McGill University anthropologist Samuel Veissière. “This is a normal coping response to the ‘new normal’ of the pandemic,” he said. Rather, “media and government continue to relay catastrophizing messages that are out of touch with actual threat levels.”

“Our species evolved to be adaptable and resilient in the face of danger, and thrived in the wake of actual catastrophes that were much, much worse than COVID,” said Veissière, assistant professor of psychiatry and co-director of the Culture, Mind and Brain program at McGill.

The vast majority of Canadians continue to show trust and cooperation, he said. “They got vaccinated, wear masks, get tested when it is required, and are lining up for booster shots.

“They see evidence in their everyday life that these measures have worked, and they are making statistically correct assumptions by not panicking when a new variant causes more infections, but no spike in severe illness and death.”

Despite “doomsday” scenarios, “that comparatively few people are panicking.…. Is once again a testament to our species’ remarkably resilient nature,” Veissière said.

There’s a whole biology around stress, and the worst type of stress is chronic, unpredictable stress, said Dr. Roger McIntrye, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Toronto.

When animals are subjected to acute stress, “they manage fine,” McIntyre said. They largely adapt to chronic stress, too. “But when they’re subjected to chronic, unpredictable stress — they never know when the event is going to end — they end up with heart disease, obesity, diabetes, brain damage and premature mortality.”

People line up at a Toronto mall where 1,000 COVID-19 antigen rapid test packs were handed out for free due to concern over the spread of the Omicron variant, December 16, 2021. Photo by Jack Boland/Postmedia

The pandemic began with the suggestion that it would take just two weeks of restrictions to “flatten” COVID’s spread. “We’re now starting year three of this. You can’t make this up, this is a sick, sick situation,” McIntrye said. “The notion that people should just be told to stay home, I would have thought we would have learned a bit more by now. There are hazards to that.” The World Health Organization defines health as physical, but also mental and social wellbeing. “We need to protect all of those,” McIntrye said.

“I think people are fed up, I think people have had enough.” You can see and hear the exhaustion everywhere, he said.

“The last thing we want anybody to do is to throw the baby out with the bath water, and just say, ‘The heck with everything’ and do what they want. That’s not what anyone wants,” McIntrye said.

“But it’s looking increasingly to me that we’re going to have COVID forever. The question is, how are we going to identify a life living with COVID? What’s that going to look like? And that’s going to take some pretty brave leadership.”

• Email: skirkey@postmedia.com | Twitter:

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Health

Canada to donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to combat mpox outbreaks in Africa

Published

2 days ago

September 13, 2024

Anne Joseph

The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.

It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.

Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”

Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.

Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.

A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.

On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.

Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”

But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”

“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.

Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.

Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.

Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.

“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.

“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

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How many Nova Scotians are on the doctor wait-list? Number hit 160,000 in June

Published

3 days ago

September 11, 2024

Anne Joseph

HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.

The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.

Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.

“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”

The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.

A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.

Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.

“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.

Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.

The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.

“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.

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Newfoundland and Labrador monitoring rise in whooping cough cases: medical officer

Published

4 days ago

September 10, 2024

Anne Joseph

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.

Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.

Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.

Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.

The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.

“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.

Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.

Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.

Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.

A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.

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