The recommended quarantine time for close contacts of a positive COVID-19 case is being reduced by up to a week in the United States, but while some of Canada’s health experts say a similar approach could be useful here, others aren’t so sure.
The U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Wednesday it had shortened the recommended length of quarantine after exposure from 14 days to 10 — or seven days with a negative test result.
Health Canada was still recommending a 14-day quarantine period as of Wednesday, but Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease specialist at McMaster University in Hamilton, says cutting that time in half would be beneficial.
“It would be super important for the sake of incentivizing people to actually quarantine after exposure,” he said.
“And there’s a lot of different things that could theoretically open up — getting health-care workers back to work, getting kids back to school — a lot of ways where this could ease the burden of potential exposure in society.”
The CDC had previously said the incubation period for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could extend to 14 days, but the organization now says most people become infectious and develop symptoms between four and five days after exposure.
Chagla says the 14-day window was likely inspired from SARS data, where the incubation period was longer.
While isolation and quarantine are sometimes used interchangeably, Chagla says there’s a difference in the terms. Isolation is for those who have tested positive, while quarantine is for people who may or may not actually have the virus, like close contacts of positive cases or those travelling into Canada. Isolation recommendations for positive cases vary, but are typically 10 days after symptom onset.
Typical course of infection
Ashleigh Tuite, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, says a change in quarantine guidance reflects our evolving understanding of COVID-19.
“If you’re exposed, it takes a couple days for you to become infectious, so [seven to 10 days] should be enough to tell whether you’ve got the virus,” Tuite said. “But of course, that’s assuming your experience is reflective of the typical course of infection.”
The key to the CDC’s new guidance for Tuite is having the option to end quarantine at seven days with a negative test result. She suspects that’s in place to stop people who have the virus but no symptoms from ending the quarantine period too early.
A positive test at Day 7 would mean that person should continue to isolate, Tuite said, while a negative result would mean they could safely end quarantine, knowing enough time has passed since exposure to confidently assume they won’t still get sick.
Testing capacity challenges
Dr. Don Sheppard, the founder and director of the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4), says the CDC’s plan makes sense scientifically, but there would be logistical issues in testing every COVID contact in Canada who wanted to end their quarantine at Day 7.
“It’s impossible to do that,” he said. “It’s either 14 days of proper isolation, or it’s seven days with a negative test, and right now our system cannot offer seven days plus testing to the public at large.”
WATCH | Could the 14-day isolation period be shorter? (At 01:18:45):
Canadians put their questions about the worsening COVID-19 pandemic to experts during an interactive two-hour special, hosted by Adrienne Arsenault and Andrew Chang. 1:39:27
Testing capacity does exist in certain situations, Sheppard said, like for health-care workers and other front-line staff that need a quicker quarantine to get back to work. He cautioned, however, that taking a test on Day 7 still means isolating for an extra day or two while awaiting results.
Quarantine also needs to be done solo in order to work, Sheppard added, warning that the CDC guidance isn’t meant as a loophole for holiday gatherings if your family isolates together for seven days before an event.
Supports for people to quarantine
He used an example of military recruits in the U.S. who were told to quarantine for 14 days before reporting to camp. A handful of positive tests (0.9 per cent) were caught upon arrival, suggesting true quarantine hadn’t been followed.
Those recruits were sent home while the rest underwent another group quarantine. When tested again two weeks later, the positivity rate had grown to 1.3 per cent.
“Why? Because there were people incubating and they turned positive. And those people infected others in their groups,” Sheppard said.
“So if you don’t do strict, single-person isolation, you don’t actually break the cycle of transmission, you just pass it around in your group.”
Tuite says that further illustrates the usefulness of a shortened quarantine period.
A mother with young children, or someone who shares a small apartment with another person will find it harder to properly quarantine for longer periods, she said, as will someone who can’t afford to take a full two weeks off work.
“It really comes down to having the means to do it,” she said. “Can you survive for two weeks if you’re not getting income? Can you isolate in a household with multiple people?
“We need to have support in place so that people can quarantine, and that doesn’t change whether it’s for a week or 14 days. But it becomes much more challenging when it’s for longer periods.”
VANCOUVER – The Pivot Legal Society and the BC Civil Liberties Association say they’ve launched three complaints against the Vancouver Police Department alleging illegal surveillance and police brutality against pro-Palestine protesters.
The association and the society say the complaints stem from the “violent dispersal” of protesters who demonstrated at a Vancouver rail crossing in May.
In a statement, the groups say the two “service and policy” complaints to the Vancouver Police Board involve police actions against “pro-Palestine demonstrators,” where they were allegedly met with “extensive forms of policing violence” and unlawful surveillance tactics through the use of police drones and officer smartphones.
They say another complaint to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner involves VPD Const. Dimitri Sheinerman, who is facing a Police Act investigation after he was photographed with an Israeli flag patch on his uniform with a “punisher” skull.
The groups say the police force has “allowed anti-Palestinian racism to persist within its ranks,” and actions against demonstrators have violated their Charter rights to freedom of expression.
Meghan McDermott, BC Civil Liberties Association policy director, says there have been “systemic rights violations” against people demonstrating for Palestinian human rights due to police bias and “undemocratic practices.”
The Vancouver Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaints.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
OTTAWA – A Conservative MP who was targeted by Beijing told a federal inquiry today that Canada has become “a playground” for foreign interference.
Michael Chong, the Tory foreign affairs critic, said the federal government should shed its culture of secrecy and release more information about threats to better inform the public.
Chong said while the vast majority of intelligence must remain secret, keeping too much information under wraps results in leaks that undermine institutions.
In May 2023, the federal government confirmed a media report that Canada’s spy service had information in 2021 that the Chinese government was looking at ways to intimidate Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong.
Global Affairs Canada said in August 2023 it believed that Chong had been the victim of a foreign smear campaign, which the department suspected was conducted by Beijing.
The department said a co-ordinated network of news accounts on the social-media app WeChat posted a large volume of false or misleading narratives about Chong from May 4 to 13 of that year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
MONTREAL – One expert says entry-level pay under the tentative deal between Air Canada and its pilots could be a stumbling block ahead of a union vote on the agreement.
Under their current contract, pilots earn far less in their first four years at the company before enjoying a big wage increase starting in year five.
The Air Line Pilots Association had been pushing to scrap the so-called “fixed rate” provision entirely.
But according to a copy of the contract summary obtained by The Canadian Press, the proposed deal announced Sunday would merely cut the four-year period of lower pay to two years.
John Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University, says as many as 2,000 of Air Canada’s roughly 5,200 active pilots may earn entry-level wages following a recent hiring surge.
After the airline averted a strike this week, Gradek says the failure to ditch the pay grade restrictions could prompt pushback from rank-and-file flight crew and jeopardize the deal, which is up for a vote next month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
_corrected.png)
