SYDNEY — Some disabled Nova Scotians are questioning why they’re not being grouped with seniors for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
People like Coxheath resident Susan Burke and Halifax resident Casey Perrin are afraid to leave their homes until they are vaccinated. Both are at high risk of serious complications if they contract the disease.
Buke’s isolation started in February 2020 at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital where she spent time in intensive care, had multiple surgeries and was not released until September. She’s been home ever since and has a bubble of three people: her sister, her boyfriend and her homecare worker.
“I’m not taking any chances. Would you? If you had my underlying conditions?” said Burke, who has spina bifida and can’t use the lower half of her body.
“I’m not taking any chances. My brother doesn’t even come in. He comes to shovel for me and he pops his head in the kitchen door and I yell at him, ‘Thanks,’ from the kitchen. I don’t go near him.”
Perrin, 28, broke her T5 and T6 vertebrae after being thrown from an all-terrain vehicle. Her respiratory muscles are affected, which means she can’t cough properly, making respiratory illnessed like COVID-19 very dangerous for her.
“People don’t know how to properly wear masks or stay socially distanced. I can’t take the chance I might get COVID. I could die if I do,” she said.
“I’m a social, bubbly girl. I can make the wall talk to me. Staying at home all the time isn’t good for me. I’ve not left my house since last March. I feel like I’m going crazy. But I have to until I can get vaccinated.”
THE ELDERLY QUESTION
Because she’s in her 20s, Perrin is in the last vaccination group in Nova Scotia’s inoculation plan, which starts from oldest to youngest.
Casey Perrin getting ready for her throw during the 2017 Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg. CONTRIBUTED
According to the provincial govenment’s website, novascotia.ca, the plan is in three phases and allows for fluctuations in vaccine availability.
Phase one includes vaccinating people working in close contact with patients, residents of long-term care home and the elderly living in the community starting with ages 80 and up.
Also included are residents of adult residential centres, regional rehabilitation centres and residential care facilities.
Disabled people living in the community, like Burke and Perrin, have to wait until their age group’s turn, regardless of how serious their underlying conditions might be.
“Disabled people are usually put (in groupings) with seniors, in every aspect with things and in this situation we’re not,” Perrin said. “We’re immunocompromised. I’m at very high risk if I get COVID just like they are.”
Burke also said her experience has been disabled people are always groups with seniors and doesn’t understand why they aren’t in this situation.
“We should be with the elderly … I don’t know why we aren’t,” she said. “We have the same conditions like they would. Their immune system’s the same as mine. I can catch anything.”
WHAT STRANG SAYS
During the Feb. 25 briefing with reporters, Dr. Robert Strang, the province’s chief medical officer of health, told media the evidence indicates the highest at-risk and most vulnerable to serious illness from COVID-19 are older people.
“As for one-offs, we have to understand that first and foremost by far the greatest risk factor for severe disease is age. By far,” said Strang.
“If we go down the road of developing one-offs or different categories, whether it’s health conditions, or, we have many, many occupational groups who are lining up saying, ‘We are essential, we need to be vaccinated first.’ If you go down that road, you actually slow down substantively the rollout of your vaccine program.”
Perrin watched the online broadcast of the briefing and said she’s “a bit uneasy” with Strang’s response about age and severity of impacts of the disease.
“There should be more to the criteria than age, like risk factors that many younger age groups have, that should be a consideration,” Perrin said.
“For example, if you don’t have the ability to cough effectively, as in my case, the results of catching COVID could be life threatening. There are many people that are younger but not as ‘healthy’ as the general population.”
HERD IMMUNITY
Strang said they’re working with the disabled community to determine how to get people living in small group homes, who often share work space with other people, immunized as quickly as possible while rolling out the age-based plan.
“If we stick with mainly an age-based vaccine program that allows us to get to our end point the fastest and that end point is giving every Nova Scotian the chance to get vaccinated,” said Strang.
“And also as we rollout — we’re building herd immunity and even those who are still waiting are protected because we’re building herd immunity.
“My job is to look at how we roll this out that has the greatest protection for all Nova Scotians and I get the one-off situations but by sticking primarily with age-based process, we will provide protection for all Nova Scotians directly and indirectly in the fastest way possible.”
During the provincial COVID-19 update on Friday, Premier Iain Rankin announced the government expected to have all Nova Scotians vaccinated with a first shot by the end of June, now that the province has accepted the National Advisory Committee on Immunization’s recommendation of a maximum span of four months between the first and second dose of the vaccine.
Earlier estimates indicated about 70 per cent of Nova Scotians would be vaccinated by the end of September.
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
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.
