VANCOUVER —
With spring break days away, B.C. health officials say they are now discouraging “all non-essential travel” outside of Canada due to the growing COVID-19 outbreak.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry made the announcement Thursday during her daily virus briefing, and stressed that the advice applies to trips to the United States.
“It is clear at this time that the evolving situation both in the United States and globally is a risk for all of us, and we are strongly advising people not to travel,” Henry said.
Anyone who travels abroad must stay home from work or school for 14 days upon their return to the province, according to health officials. While government cannot force people to follow this rule, officials said they expect people to follow it “as part of their civic duty.”
Henry also said event organizers are being told to cancel all gatherings of 250 people or more, though officials are not asking schools in the province to close.
“We know that sometimes the impacts of closing schools – particularly abruptly – can cause a lot of societal disruption and economic impact, so we want to be doing that in a measured way,” the provincial health officer said.
Henry said health officials and the provincial Ministry of Education will continue to evaluate the possibility of closing schools in the future. Students in B.C. are scheduled to begin their spring breaks at the end of the day Friday.
“We have a period of time where we can be thoughtful, we can investigate the issues around schools, we can talk with the stakeholders and make sure we know what is the best thing for us to do in the coming days to weeks as the situation continues to change around us,” she said.
The recommendation to avoid travel and the cancellation of large gatherings reflect the changing nature of the situation around the world, Henry said.
“While (the risk) hasn’t changed a lot here in B.C., the risk has increased all around us, I would say, and our understanding of the situation has also changed,” she said.
Henry said the decision to advise against all travel outside Canada came, in part, from consultations with health officials in Quebec, where school spring breaks recently ended and some travellers brought the virus home with them.
“While I have full confidence that it will come under control, the situation is just too risky right now, and for people who feel that that is a risk they’re willing to take, that is their decision, but we need to be able to ensure that our schools and our workplaces remain safe here in British Columbia,” Henry said.
The decision to require the cancellation of gatherings over 250 people follows similar measures taken in other jurisdictions.
Henry mentioned concerns about transmission at large gatherings, including at a dental conference in Vancouver earlier this month, as a rationale for capping gatherings at that limit.
“That was concerning to people even though the risk is very low,” she said, in reference to the conference. “With the escalating risk of this community transmission, we have to do our best to slow COVID-19 infections here.”
Henry said 250 people is “not scientific,” but was chosen as the upper limit for gatherings because it can be difficult to achieve the necessary “social distancing” in groups larger than that.
She said event organizers should consider limiting attendance to a number below the 250-person threshold in order to ensure the ability to keep people separated by at least an arm’s length, as well as the availability of hand sanitizer and hand-washing facilities.
“I have heard from many, many event organizers that us making this recommendation makes it much easier for them to take those measures that we need them to take to protect our health,” Henry said.
In addition, officials announced seven new B.C. cases of COVID-19, bringing the provincial total to 53.
Three of the new cases are related to Hollyburn House, a seniors’ care home in West Vancouver. Two are staff members – a man and woman in their 40s who are both in isolation at home – while the third is a man in his 90s who lives at the facility.
Both of the workers are also employed at Lynn Valley Care Centre in neighbouring North Vancouver, where Canada’s first death from the virus occurred earlier this month.
Revera Inc., the owner and operator of Hollyburn House, said the cases were discovered through an “active screening process” that has been underway in B.C. since last weekend. That screening involves checking everyone entering the home for symptoms of the novel coronavirus and asking about their recent travel history.
The other four cases announced Thursday are not related to either care home, and are all located in the Vancouver Coastal Health region.
Three of those cases are travel-related. One is a man in his 40s who recently returned from the United Kingdom. Two more are a couple – a man and a woman – in their 40s who were recently on a tour in Egypt.
The last case announced Thursday is a man in his 50s. Officials are still working to determine where and how he contracted the virus.
Of B.C.’s 53 total cases, only one person is hospitalized, Henry said Thursday. That person, a woman in her 60s in the Fraser Health region, is in stable condition.
Henry also announced that two more of the people infected with the virus in B.C. have now recovered, bringing the total to six B.C. residents who have recovered from COVID-19.
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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