Premier Blaine Higgs has talked about “living with COVID” for months now, but he’s never articulated what that concept means quite the way he did last Friday at the legislature.
Higgs literally shrugged as he predicted in a scrum with reporters that everyone in New Brunswick will probably be infected by the virus eventually.
“My jaw dropped to the floor,” said Fredericton resident Jessica Bleasdale.
“I had never really quite heard him articulate it in that manner, in that it’s just an expectation that we’d all get COVID. And that’s an unacceptable response during a pandemic.”
New Brunswick premier defends lack of mandatory masking in schools
4 days ago
Duration 0:48
Premier Blaine Higgs says the government is taking direction from Public Health and won’t make this issue ‘political.’ 0:48
University of Toronto infectious disease epidemiologist Colin Furness says the premier’s statement represents “an abandonment” of people most at risk from severe COVID symptoms.
“I think the comment’s appalling. I think it’s a huge violation of the social contract.”
Bleasdale has complained to the College of Physicians and Surgeons and to the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission about Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell recommending the end of mask mandates in schools.
She notes that while more than 90 per cent of polio infections are asymptomatic, what society remembers now about the North American epidemic after the Second World War is those left paralyzed by the disease before a vaccine was developed.
“I’m not prepared to have my children be part of an experiment,” she said.
As of last week, approximately one in every nine New Brunswickers had contracted COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
Jessica Bleasdale says her “jaw dropped to the floor” when she heard the premier’s comments. Bleasdale is pushing to have mask mandates reinstated in public schools. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)
Higgs’s remarks last Friday were another example of the premier’s trademark candour: he often expresses his thoughts with little regard for what the political blowback might be.
But at a time when some New Brunswickers are on edge about the March 14 end of all protective measures, the comment struck a nerve.
“My first response was anger,” says Elizabeth Doherty, a Fredericton university student who is immunocompromised and who has suffered severe COVID symptoms since testing positive March 11.
“I don’t feel he is addressing the people most vulnerable to this virus when he says those statements. I feel like we’re once again left out of that.”
Higgs was responding to a petition tabled in the legislature by Liberal MLA Rob McKee in which 1,400 people call for a return of mask mandates in provincial schools.
He said Public Health had been “very, very clear” that the pandemic would be manageable even without the government’s COVID winter plan in place.
“The goal was to ensure that hospitals could manage, because we know probably at the end of the day, we’ll all get COVID in some way or another, and maybe it won’t be what we think is COVID, we’ll think it’s a cold.”
No response from Health
The Department of Health did not respond Monday to a question from CBC News about whether its current COVID strategy presumes everyone in the province will be infected and whether it has models showing how quickly that might happen.
When the province announced Jan. 13 that it was moving to Level 3 of its winter plan, the strictest version, there were 104 people in hospitals with COVID-19.
As of the last update on March 22, there were 129, an increase of 30 over a week before.
But Higgs said Friday that hospitals “can manage this and we have done so through the entire pandemic.”
Higgs and many members of his family were infected with COVID-19 over the Christmas break, and he has frequently mentioned that his symptoms were like a flu or cold.
“What do I gotta do to be in the group that only gets the cold?” asked Doherty. “I don’t have any control over that, really.”
Colin Furness, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, believes society has a duty to protect the people most vulnerable to the disease. (CBC)
Furness says patients like Doherty are the ones he worries about most.
“Do we have a duty to keep them safe? I would argue that we do. And when you sit down and say everyone’s going to get it, you’re saying we don’t have it anymore.”
Doherty, a mature student at St. Thomas University, was born prematurely and has a complex medical history that includes severe lung disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema and asthma.
“When all you’re hearing about generally is those who are having milder symptoms, you sort of start to wonder ‘Why me?’ It’s hard not to go down that rabbit hole,” she said.
“Unfortunately I’m not one of the ones that Premier Higgs spoke of that would just maybe get a cold.”
Defining ‘Living with COVID’
It’s hard to project what it would look like if all New Brunswickers were infected with COVID-19.
Researchers are still looking at what “long COVID” means.
And modelling case growth is getting harder, Furness says, because vaccine immunity and natural immunity from infection wane over time, meaning people can be infected several times.
“It’s not like this is something you’re going to suffer once and then it’s over and done with. That’s what a lot of people would like to think, because that certainly makes it a lot easier to understand and rationalize the decision to stop trying to protect people.”
On top of that, the number of cases is likely much larger because some people won’t know they have COVID or won’t bother reporting it.
The pace of vaccinations is also slowing in the province. Fewer than 60 per cent of children aged 5-11 had a first vaccine dose as of March 22.
And only 51 per cent of eligible people have had a third shot as a booster, which is how Public Health defines “fully protected.”
Still, Furness says everyone getting COVID is not inevitable but is only one of several possible outcomes.
“It’s a function of what your policy is,” he said. “If that’s your policy, you can certainly enact policy that makes pretty sure that everyone will get COVID.”
He says “living with COVID” seems to mean doing nothing, when it should mean measures such as improved ventilation and a return to mask mandates during spikes.
While the virus can’t be eliminated, “we can create conditions under which people who are particularly at risk have a fighting chance of not getting it, or not getting it severely.”
Elizabeth Doherty, 38, is immunocompromised and says she wished the premier had shown more compassion for people like her. (Submitted)
Doherty said her symptoms have been “awful” since her positive test, including extreme fatigue, joint and muscle pain, nausea, headaches and difficulty concentrating.
Doherty is due to graduate this spring and until her positive test on March 11, she felt confident she’d make it.
Now she’s unsure how the rest of her semester will play out. But she says a couple of times each day, she looks at her graduation ring, which arrived last week, to motivate herself to not give up.
The premier’s comments didn’t help that effort, she said.
“There’s a whole population that is completely being pushed aside or not addressed… Not everyone was fortunate enough to just get the sniffles that he had.
“I just really would have appreciated a little bit more compassion.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
