This is the first in a series looking at some of the lessons learned from the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic and how Canada moves forward.
This year has given new meaning to the old expression “hindsight is 2020.”
Three months ago, Canada’s government closed the land border with the U.S. just days after closing its airports to international flights — a move that followed weeks of government assurances that border closures to limit the spread of the pandemic don’t work.
As the U.S. experience has shown, money and power provide little protection against the pandemic unless there is a competent government to harness them. Some of the world’s worst-hit countries have issues of citizen mistrust, government dysfunction, corruption, inefficiency or partisan gridlock (Italy, the United States, Brazil and Russia).
The democracies that have achieved the very best outcomes tend to have smaller populations and good governance — and tend to be surrounded by water (Iceland, Taiwan, Ireland and New Zealand).
“It’s probably not a coincidence that those places are islands,” said Dr. David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. “Not having a land border just gives you a lot more control over the influx of people.”
Both P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador used strict travel restrictions to beat back the pandemic. But being an island doesn’t help if you don’t take advantage of your geography — as the example of the United Kingdom demonstrates.
“I think countries that don’t have that luxury of being an island being cut off by the sea can maybe still learn from that about … more stringent controls at the border,” Fisman said.
The Australian experience
“In Australia the situation is very good. It looks to be completely under control, with a focus on contact tracing and masks to prevent the spread,” said Valentina Constantino, a biosecurity researcher who advised the Australian government in the early days of the pandemic. Her team’s research in January contributed to Australia’s early decision to close the country to all traffic from mainland China on February 1.
Australia’s pandemic has closely tracked her modelling. Her team’s analysis, published in the Journal of Travel Medicine, suggests that Australia experienced only 14 per cent of the infections it would have faced if borders with China had remained open.
Surfers walk along Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia on April 28, 2020, after pandemic restrictions were eased. (Rick Rycroft/The Associated Press)
As February turned into March, the ban was extended and Australia added South Korea, Iran and Italy. Many in Australia were deeply concerned about the border closure’s effects on the economy.
But today, said Constantino, the same modelling would recommend re-opening Australia to travellers from China because the costs of closure are outweighed by the benefits of admitting what is now a low-risk population. She said she expects Australia to keep its borders mostly closed for the rest of 2020, but to re-admit students sooner.
The time factor
“Time is the most important variable in this,” Constantino said. Australia acted at a point when more than 90 per cent of its cases could be directly linked to overseas travel.
“For example, if the U.S. implemented a travel ban, it’s not going to fix anything now, because most of the transmission is local,” she added.
Canada’s COVID-19 experience differs from Australia’s in that cases entered Canada from a broader range of locations. But Canada does have a fairly well-controlled border with only one country, and the vast majority of travellers from outside the U.S. must reach Canada by air. Could Canada have taken Australia’s path and avoided needless deaths and hardship?
On the day Australia closed its borders to China, Canada had four confirmed COVID-19 cases, all linked to travel from China. At the time, the Trudeau government was still committed to the idea that travel bans don’t work and even suggested that those proposing them might be racist.
Minister of Health Patty Hajdu looks on as Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam responds to a question during a pandemic news conference in Ottawa April 2, 2020. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
The U.S. had declared a public health emergency the day before, and the New England Journal of Medicine had published a report saying that COVID-19 could be spread by asymptomatic carriers. Health Minister Patty Hajdu said Canada saw no need to declare an emergency and that Health Canada had seen no evidence of asymptomatic spread.
“We’re comfortable that we’re completely up to date in terms of our approach and what the science says. There is a very low risk to Canadians,” Hajdu said on Jan. 31. “We’ve been following closely the recommendations of the World Health Organization.”
The ‘lost months’
On February 3, the U.S. followed Australia’s lead and froze travel with China. Asked in the Commons why Canada was not doing the same, Hajdu denounced “the spread of misinformation and fear across Canadian society” and called on the opposition to “not sensationalize the risk to Canadians.”
Wesley Wark is one of Canada’s leading experts on intelligence. He said Hajdu’s low-risk assessment would dominate government thinking for at least another four weeks, as documented by the daily situational reports produced by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
“(The reports) said throughout that the risk posed by COVID-19 to Canada and Canada’s interests was low,” Wark said.
“That is, in my view, an astonishing failure of judgment, and it means as far as I’m concerned that a radical rethink has to take place in how we do global health surveillance.
“January 2020 and February 2020 were effectively lost months for Canada in terms of us preparing for the impacts of COVID-19.”
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Ronald St. John was the first director general of the Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response at the Public Health Agency of Canada, and national manager for Canada’s response to 9/11 and SARS.
‘A bit slow’
He’s also the founder of Sitata, a company that runs a travel safety app that monitors health information from open sources. Sitata first notified its subscribers of the risk of a new virus on January 2, when COVID-19 was still just a mysterious local outbreak in one part of China.
St. John said it’s important not to be too harsh when judging the actions of officials who faced an unprecedented situation with few good or easy options available to them. Nevertheless, he said, he “personally” thinks Canada’s response in January “was a bit slow.”
“We already knew by that time that the disease had spread to South Korea, that Japan was reporting a few cases, and we knew that this was a respiratory disease, a virus,” he said. “And a respiratory virus is probably one of the easiest things to get transmitted all over the place …
“It probably should have been taken a little bit more seriously than it was that time.”
First in, first out
Australia and New Zealand are now reaping the benefits of their early, aggressive border action. They are planning to create a “Trans-Tasman travel bubble” allowing for free movement between the two countries, although New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern warns that “we will not have open borders for the rest of the world for a long time to come.”
Ardern was able to begin rolling back lockdown measures on April 27, while the pandemic was still growing rapidly in most parts of the world.
On June 8, New Zealand declared itself “COVID-free.”
Here in Canada, gene sequencing and contact tracing have revealed that many Canadian COVID-19 cases were linked to travel from Europe, while other early cases involved travel to Iran.
No one will ever know how many COVID cases entered Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canadian snowbirds on March 16 that it was “time to come home,” triggering an exodus from Florida straight through the American COVID-19 epicentre of New York and New Jersey.
Ottawa changes its mind
Canada began to close its borders to international travel that day, but exempted U.S. citizens. Ottawa announced it was closing the border to non-essential travel on March 20.
It was a remarkable turnaround for a government that previously had insisted that travel bans did not work. Hajdu was still denouncing border closures as late as March 13: “Canadians think we can stop this at the border,” she said. “But what we see is a global pandemic, which means that border measures are highly ineffective and, in some cases, can create harm.”
“[The World Health Organization] advises against any kind of travel and trade restrictions, saying that they are inappropriate and could actually cause more harm than good in terms of our global effort to contain,” Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said on Feb. 3.
The government has been accused of being too subservient to a WHO that was advising against border closures at the start of the epidemic. Its actions may also reflect an internal conflict between ideology and epidemiology.
In February, Hajdu told CBC News she feared COVID-19 would provoke racist reactions.
Watch: Health Minister Patty Hajdu on the pandemic and racism
Federal cabinet minister Patty Hajdu joined CBC’s Wendy Mesley on The Weekly to discuss the rising fear and racism against the Chinese-Canadian community due to online misinformation about the coronavirus. 3:31
Although there have been ugly incidents of pandemic-related racism, none have resulted in fatalities. The virus itself, however, has killed thousands of Canadians and crippled the economy.
The experience of the countries that closed their borders early has effectively ended the notion that travel bans don’t work. But while Canada may have learned that lesson, it will still have to innovate in order to reopen its borders at a later date.
Countries that depend on tourism from Europe to the Caribbean are admitting foreign travellers, but some are choosy about where they can come from (Greece will accept Japanese and Germans but doesn’t want any Canadians yet). Accurate intelligence about the state of the disease in foreign countries is critical to informing those decisions.
Reopening the border safely
Antigua has opened its borders to every country in the world. But anyone entering the country must undergo much more rigorous procedures than those in place at Canadian airports, including an overall health check, temperature readings and a COVID swab.
Many European countries that have reopened to their neighbours require travellers to produce recent negative COVID molecular test results.
Will Canada have to adopt one of those approaches at its airports and land border as it reopens? Given the alarming state of the pandemic in the United States, said Fisman, Canada doesn’t really have a choice.
“I’d love to see stronger efforts to, for example, test truckers, folks who were coming across the border into Canada bringing essential goods and supplies and going down to the U.S.,” he said.
“Anecdotally, they’ve been a group that’s been relatively hard hit. Embrace technology for that in terms of keeping track of people and keeping in contact with people.”
He said Canada also should see airports and the border as ideal places to gather public health intelligence.
“I think the airports being open provides an excellent opportunity to gain situational awareness about what’s happening with COVID in other countries because you can swab travelers as they’re coming in,” he said.”That’s what they’ve been doing in Taiwan … gaining that knowledge by testing travelers as a condition of entry to the country.
“As disease activity declines in Canada, as I expect it to, that will become more and more important in terms of limiting large scale importation of disease.”
HAMILTON – It remains faint but Bo Levi Mitchell and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats still have a playoff pulse.
Mitchell threw two touchdown passes as Hamilton defeated the Ottawa Redblacks 37-21 in the CFL’s annual Hall of Fame game Saturday afternoon. The Ticats (4-9) earned a second straight win to move to within six points of the third-place Toronto Argonauts (7-6) in the East Division.
Hamilton visits Toronto on Friday night.
“Obviously they’re (wins) huge now,” Mitchell said. “We didn’t do ourselves any favours by getting into this position and not being able to really control our own destiny.
“But right now, we need certain people to win at certain times. Our job is to go out there and try to win the next five, then the next three after that.”
Mitchell finished 20-of-27 passing for 299 yards and an interception. He entered weekend action leading the CFL in passing yards (3,383) and TD strikes (21).
Greg Bell’s 15-yard TD run at 11:30 of the fourth and two-point convert put Hamilton up 36-21 after backup Jeremiah Masoli led Ottawa on two scoring drives. Following a 13-yard TD strike to Andre Miller at 2:53, Masoli found Dominique Rhymes on a 10-yard touchdown pass at 7:43 before Khalan Laborn’s two-point convert cut Hamilton’s lead to 29-21.
“When you’re scoring from (15) yards out on a run play, that makes offence easy,” Mitchell said. “It’s one of those things when you get down there as a quarterback, it takes you sometimes five, eight, 10 plays and now it’s ‘OK, now we have to create some stuff and find something.’
“When you hand the ball off and you’re scoring from (15) yards, it makes the offence really easy.”
Ottawa (8-4-1) would have clinched a playoff spot with a victory.
Ottawa committed six turnovers (three interceptions, two fumbles, once on downs) before an announced Tim Hortons Field gathering of 22,119. Lawrence Woods III also returned a punt 83 yards for a touchdown at 11:51 of the first quarter that put Hamilton ahead 10-3.
“You’ve got to bring your best every single week and this wasn’t our best, all of us, from coaches to the players,” said Ottawa head coach Bob Dyce. “If you don’t play great for four quarters, I don’t care who you’re playing you’re not going to have a successful day.
“We should’ve made the tackle (on Woods), we had him wrapped up it’s that simple. Even though we didn’t make the play on that, there should’ve been extra bodies there to clean it up when he did break the tackle.”
Hamilton also tied the season series with Ottawa 1-1. The teams meet again at TD Place on Oct. 25.
“If we didn’t turn it over today I would’ve said we played really well offensively and that to me is what the biggest difference is,” said Hamilton head coach Scott Milanovich. “Even the turnovers today (interception, fumble), at least they were in their end and we weren’t giving them a short field.
“The biggest play of the game was Woodsie’s return. It got us jump-started, gave us the lead and we were kind of off after that.”
Ottawa starter Dru Brown was 17-of-27 passing for 164 yards and an interception. Masoli entered late in the third and finished 13-of-19 passing for 183 yards with two TDs and two interceptions, but Dyce said Brown will start next weekend against Montreal (10-2-1), which earned a 19-19 tie Saturday night with Calgary (4-8-1).
The Canadian Football Hall of Fame’s ’24 class of S.J. Green, Chad Owens, Weston Dressler, Vince Goldsmith and Vince Coleman, along with builders Ray Jauch and Ed Laverty (posthumously), was honoured at halftime. All were enshrined Friday night.
Steven Dunbar Jr. and Ante Litre had Hamilton’s other touchdowns. Marc Liegghio kicked two field goals, three converts and two singles.
Ottawa’s Lewis Ward booted two field goals and a convert.
Mitchell culminated a five-play, 96-yard march with a 20-yard TD pass to Litre at 13:34 of the third. It followed Jonathan Moxey’s interception.
Liegghio’s single at 7:05 of the third put Hamilton up 22-6.
Mitchell’s 54-yard TD strike to Dunbar at 14:18 of the second staked Hamilton to its 21-6 halftime lead. The advantage was well-deserved as the Ticats had more first downs (12-six), net offensive yards (260-144) and scored on both offence and special teams.
Mitchell was 14-of-20 passing for 210 yards and a TD, but his interception cost Hamilton at least a field-goal attempt. Dunbar had five receptions for 113 yards and the touchdown.
Brown completed 13-of-21 passes for 127 yards.
Liegghio’s missed 47-yard attempt went for the single at 12:45 to put Hamilton ahead 14-6. It followed a Kiondre Smith catch that was ruled incomplete and at the very least cost the Ticats a first down that would’ve kept the drive alive.
Ward’s 30-yard kick at 9:15 had pulled Ottawa to within 13-6.
Liegghio’s 19-yard field goal at 5:13 pushed Hamilton’s lead to 13-3. It followed the defence stopping Ottawa’s Dustin Crum on third-and-one, giving the Ticats possession at the Redblacks 40.
Liegghio’s 47-yard field goal opened the scoring at 2:42 before Ward tied in with a 24-yard boot at 8:44.
UP NEXT
Redblacks: Host the Montreal Alouettes (10-2-1) next Saturday, Sept. 21.
Tiger-Cats: Visit the Toronto Argonauts (7-6) on Friday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2024.
TORONTO – Needing three points to keep their playoff push alive, Toronto FC’s Jonathan Osorio and Deandre Kerr stepped up with first-half goals against Austin FC on Saturday with goalkeeper Sean Johnson doing his bit at the other end.
A 76th-minute goal by Austin’s Owen Wolff made for a nervy ending but TFC hung on for a 2-1 win.
While Toronto (11-15-3) remains on the Major League Soccer playoff bubble in eighth place in the Eastern Conference (the eighth- and ninth-place teams in each conference square off in a wild-card playoff with the winner facing the top seed in the conference), other results went their way.
Seventh-place Charlotte, 10th-place Atlanta and 11th-place Philadelphia all lost while ninth-place D.C. United tied.
Toronto midfielder Alonso Coello called it “a game we had to win.”
“It’s a big win … To see that fight tonight was important,” added coach John Herdman.
Austin (9-12-7) came into the game in 11th place in the West, two points below ninth-place Minnesota. The Texas side has won just one of its last six league games (1-4-1).
Austin outshot Toronto 7-6 (6-2 edge in shots on target) in the first half but found itself trailing 2-0 at the break as Toronto took advantage of its chances and the visitors didn’t in their first-ever visit to BMO Field, before an announced crowd of 25,538.
Toronto had a dream start, catching Austin on the counterattack in the seventh minute. A sliding Austin player dispossessed an onrushing Kerr, who had been set free by a long ball from Coello, but the ball bounced to Osorio, who beat goalkeeper Brad Stuver with a rising shot.
It was the Toronto captain’s second goal of the season in league play and his 65th for TFC in all competitions. Only Sebastian Giovinco (83) and Jozy Altidore (79) scored more in Toronto colours.
TFC went ahead on another counterattack in the 30th minute after an Austin giveaway. Osorio found Richie Laryea outpacing his marker and the wingback unselfishly sent a perfect low cross across goal for Kerr to knock home for his third of the season.
Wolff, the son of Austin head coach Josh Wolff, made it interesting with his late strike. The 19-year-old U.S. youth international, controlling a long ball, beat defender Raoul Petretta and then waited out Johnson before slotting it home for his first of the season.
Toronto survived a nervy six minutes of stoppage time as Austin pressed for the equalizer. Austin outshot Toronto 14-9 (8-3 in shots on target) and had 52.5 per cent possession.
The win evened Toronto’s home record at 7-7-0, while Austin slipped to 3-8-3 on the road.
It was a costly evening for Austin with defender Brendan Hines-Ike, midfielder Jhojan Valencia and star attacker Sebastian Driussi allpicking up cautions to miss Wednesday’s game with Los Angeles FC due to yellow-card accumulation.
Toronto defender Shane O’Neill will miss Wednesday’s game against visiting Columbus for the same reason. Toronto could be short mid-week, too. The hope is veteran centre back Kevin Long, who missed Saturday’s game after tweaking his hamstring in training, will be good to go.
Toronto has five games remaining, including three more at home as it looks to return to the post-season for the first time since 2020 when it lost to Nashville after extra time at the first hurdle.
It is a challenging road.
TFC hosts Columbus, the New York Red Bulls and Inter Miami while playing away at the Colorado Rapids and Chicago Fire. All but Chicago are in playoff positions.
The only previous meeting between Toronto and Austin was in May 2023, when Zardes scored a 91st-minute winner to give Austin a 1-0 win over visiting Toronto, which was then mired at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. That loss prompted a post-game outburst from Italian star Federico Bernardeschi about TFC’s drab play.
Then-coach Bob Bradley benched Bernardeschi for the next game.
Current coach John Herdman made four changes to his starting 11 with Bernardeschi and Osorio returning from suspension and Coello and Kerr also slotting in. Coello, who had missed the last eight league games with a hamstring injury, was impressive in his 59-minute return.
Both Toronto and Austin suffered home losses last time out going into the international break. Toronto was beaten 3-1 by D.C. United while Austin lost 1-0 to Vancouver.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2024.
MONTREAL – CF Montreal is back in the win column after securing a 2-1 Major League Soccer win over Charlotte FC on Saturday night at Stade Saputo.
Montreal’s form had suffered of late, with just one win in MLS since July, but Laurent Courtois’ squad showed a level of poise and control over the tempo of the game that had not been seen since the beginning of the season.
“What we’ve changed in the last few weeks or months in terms of our methodology or coaching, is nothing. We did the exact thing, We had the exact same words, and we expressed them the exact same way,” said Courtois. “Today, everything just clicked.”
Caden Clark scored for the first time as a Montreal (7-12-9) player in the 23rd minute, in addition to Bryce Duke’s goal three minutes later that ended up being the winner, while Tim Ream found the back of the net for Charlotte (10-10-8).
Montreal had the first major scoring chance of the match after 15 minutes of play. With a free kick roughly 25 metres away from goal, Gabriele Corbo sent a near-perfect shot smashing off the crossbar.
Montreal would continue to dictate the tempo in the opening phase, finding first blood just seven minutes later.
Following a phenomenal triple-save from Charlotte goalkeeper Kristijan Kahlina, the ball fell to Clark who volleyed the ball into the wide-open net, picking up his first goal for the club.
“I think you don’t lose the feeling (of scoring), everything happens for a reason, you just can’t lose yourself in the chaos,” said Clark, who had missed a full season due to injury and was briefly without a club, but was grateful for Courtois’ confidence in him.
“(To have a coach’s confidence) is huge and is something I’ve had both ends of so you just can’t take advantage of that in the wrong way. I’m going to keep my discipline with the game plan and keep my head right.”
With momentum completely on their side, the home side doubled the lead just three minutes later. Montreal continued to build up play on the left flank and found a streaking Raheem Edwards in behind the defence who cut the ball back to Duke, sending the Stade Saputo crowd into a frenzy.
Just after the half-hour mark, Charlotte pulled one back through a set piece — something Montreal has struggled defending all season — as Ream rose above everyone at the back post to score his first with his new club.
The second half began in a similar fashion to the end of the first, with Charlotte pressing high up the pitch and forcing several turnovers in dangerous areas. After surviving the pressure, Montreal began to regain control of the game near the hour mark, enjoying the lion’s share of the possession while Charlotte looked to hit back on the counterattack.
“I think when we conceded that goal we were like ‘here we go again.’ 2-1 is a tough lead before halftime … and at the beginning of the half we kind of shot ourselves in the foot and they pressed a bit more, they moved a bit more forward and that opened some gaps,” said captain Samuel Piette.
“I was happy with that, it shows character. At the end of the day, we just wanted the three points and that’s what we got.”
As the game progressed, Charlotte pushed harder to find an equalizer but to no avail. With only one shot on target conceded, the second-worst defence in the league put up an impressive front and confidently rebuffed every single Charlotte attack.
“I’m a big fan of the back five’s performance in their discipline, competitiveness, and synchronization with balls in behind,” said Courtois.
“We can’t explain sometimes in a game it’s not there, they’re capable and today they showed it. Let’s see tomorrow.”
UP NEXT
Both teams are back in action on Sept. 18 away from home as Montreal will look to avenge a 5-0 rout against the New England Revolution while Charlotte visits Orlando City SC.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2024.
