British Columbians could expand their social bubble to their ‘safe six’ by the end of February, said Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry Friday, but easing restrictions will all depend on the trajectory of COVID-19 transmissions.
And with new variants doubling in the last week, Henry said any explosion in cases would sink such hopes.
“I’m not putting an end to the orders we have now,” she said at Friday’s press conference. “I don’t want people to start thinking about, ‘Yeah, we’re out of this, we’re back to normal.’”
To date, 28 cases across the province have been identified as ‘variants of concern.’ That includes 14 cases of the U.K. variant linked to people with a history of travel to the U.K, Ireland and Dubai, among other countries. Another five have been associated to close contacts with a history of travel.
The U.K. variant, or B.1.1.7, is a highly contagious form of the coronavirus that can spread at least 50% faster than the current predominant strain in B.C.
But when it comes to the South African variant, or B.1.351, data coming out in the last week suggests it causes more severe illness, something Henry said “is worrisome.”
“If we start to see one of these variants take off, all bets are off,” she said.
Across B.C., public health is working to ramp up its surveillance of the new variants, a plan which looks to establish a system of markers that would flag positive COVID-19 tests and target samples for full genome sequencing.
Henry said laboratories are looking to screen thousands of samples per week, up from roughly 750 conducted now, and eventually covering every molecular test in the province.
At the same time, Henry said B.C.’s capacity for full genome sequencing will also be increased, and public health workers will be moving to target suspect outbreaks, whether in schools or surrounding recent travel.
For example, while close contacts aren’t usually tested until symptoms develop, that will change with the targeted testing of certain outbreaks involving a highly contagious variant.
The good news: long-term case data from the BC Centre for Disease Control indicates the virus is plateauing in many of the province’s hardest-hit regions, like Fraser Health, after a peak in November.
Whereas contact tracers were heavily strained to keep up with peak November caseloads, that pressure has been eased across the Fraser Valley and Lower Mainland, while caseloads in the north, Interior and Sea-to-Sky regions of the province are still putting a heavy burden on smaller public health teams. In Whistler, for example, 547 cases have been identified between Jan. 1 and Feb. 2.
Henry said public health workers have been unable to trace the source in about 20% of cases across B.C.
Transmissions across the province are now being driven by people between the age of 20 and 49, with younger groups passing on the virus in social settings and older generations primarily spreading COVID-19 in workplaces.
Scientists and health officials have repeatedly painted the current status of the pandemic as a race between the emergence of new highly contagious variants and the roll-out of vaccines.
But on Friday, Henry said cases of COVID-19 among British Columbians over age 80 have come down significantly due to vaccinations across the province’s long-term care homes.
“We’re now seeing that it’s helping us to stop those outbreaks rapidly,” said Henry, adding 55 people have had a severe negative reaction to a vaccine, mostly due to an allergy.
The long-term trajectory of vaccine rollouts is less certain.
In B.C., across Canada and in many other countries, delivery of currently approved vaccines have faced significant delays as manufacturers work to ramp up their manufacturing capacity and meet contracts with dozens of countries.
In floating the possibility of easing current public health restrictions by the end of February, Henry pointed to a slow and limited increase in social interactions.
That could mean limited faith services and the resumption of group activities, though Henry did not go into detail.
Currently, British Columbians are reducing social contacts by 40% to 50% compared to pre-pandemic levels, she said.
“We are in a place of a little bit more uncertainty. We need to buy some time to understand if these positive things that we’re seeing are going to allow us to take away some of the restrictions we have in place now, and be able to do that safely,” Henry said.
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.
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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