Health
How businesses and schools are dealing with airborne COVID-19 and preparing for a winter indoors – CBC.ca
On a sunny Friday in October, the 9Round fitness club in midtown Toronto was as busy as it could be, according to local rules.
Masked clients kicked, punched and jabbed at nine individual boxing-style workout stations, each spaced apart by more than 2 metres. The stations were wiped down with disinfectant after each use. Guests who arrived at the open door were asked to wait outside until a station opened up and an employee was able to screen them for COVID-19.
“Where I’m coming from, as a business owner, it’s in our best interest to do everything we can,” said Brian Castillo, who heads up the gym. “We have to bet our livelihoods on the precautions that we take to ensure that we can operate.”
It’s a complicated dance, and one made more so by concerns that COVID-19 could spread more easily indoors, especially in places where people might be singing, shouting or exercising.
Scientists initially believed the virus spreads primarily through heavy droplets from a sneeze or a cough, which quickly fall to the ground, but newer research shows airborne transmission also exists.
After the interview with Castillo, most of Toronto’s fitness centres were closed as the city returned to Ontario’s Stage 2 pandemic regulations. Castillo’s club is a provincial sports organization training facility, and as a result it has remained open in a limited way under the organization’s guidance.
- THE NATIONAL | Watch the feature about concerns over indoor air quality, Sunday Nov. 8 on The National at 9 p.m. ET on CBC News Network and 10 p.m. local time on your CBC television station. You can also catch The National online on CBC Gem.
Concerns about airborne transmission of COVID-19 have been on Castillo’s mind for months. As studies emerged showing how the virus could spread in poorly ventilated spaces, Castillo upgraded his HVAC system and had a UVA filter added to help clean the air inside the gym. He said the changes cost him several hundred dollars.
Exactly how well such measures help protect against COVID-19 transmission is still unknown. But Castillo says he must make the effort.
“I’d rather go above and beyond and ensure that we’re doing the appropriate things, than [feel] overconfident [and] maybe slacking a bit,” he said.
According to bioaerosols researcher Caroline Duchaine of Université Laval, in indoor spaces, “ventilation has to be addressed as a major part of the infection control [measures].”
Duchaine and her team in Quebec City have taken air samples in the hospital rooms of COVID-19 patients in order to study how the coronavirus spreads in the air. In poorly ventilated spaces, Duchaine said, viral particles can “accumulate in the surrounding environment of the infected person” and could potentially infect someone else, even beyond a distance of 2 metres.
She said there is “more and more evidence that says that the major outbreaks and the super-spreading events that happened so far happened indoors in poorly ventilated spaces.”
Duchaine was part of an international group of 239 scientists who wrote to the World Health Organization (WHO) in July, urging the agency to recognize that the virus can spread through the air. Since then, the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have acknowledged that airborne transmission of COVID-19 is possible.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) followed suit this week, saying COVID-19 spreads through large droplets as well as “smaller droplets, sometimes called aerosols, which linger in the air under some circumstances.”
Even before the update, PHAC’s official guidelines encouraged people to avoid poorly ventilated environments.
Schools, where interactions inside enclosed spaces are necessary, have spent months trying to sort out indoor air quality issues.
St. Michael’s College School, a boys’ private school in Toronto, has taken precautions such as masks, screening measures, physical distancing, and new hand washing stations. It has also updated its ventilation system.
“We’ve added units that are HEPA filters, as well as ultraviolet light units that have been added to every classroom and workspace in the building,” said principal James McKinnon.
“My understanding of the units is that there’s a 99 per cent kill rate for bacteria and viruses, including COVID-19. So the standard is quite high,” he added.
McKinnon didn’t provide a total cost for the upgrade, but said the measures were necessary in today’s environment.
“We know the value of trying to keep schools open. So, we’ll do what we can to make that happen,” he said.
The Toronto Public School Board was given $6.9 million by the province to improve air quality in its schools this year. For some older facilities without mechanical ventilation systems that could be updated, the board has looked to air purification systems, like HEPA filters, as a supplement.
In October, hundreds of air purifying units were donated to the board and distributed to 37 older schools in communities that are most at risk of COVID-19 spread.
Canada’s updated public health guidelines suggest people, “maximize ventilation by ensuring that heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are in good working order.”
HVAC consultant Matt MacAvelia, of Advantage Airtech in Pickering, Ont., said there is a range of actions building managers can consider taking to improve their indoor air quality, from small upgrades that don’t cost much, to full overhauls that can cost thousands of dollars.
The most cost-effective plan, he said, is to look at existing systems and see “if you can do something there to improve what you already have.”
Indoor air quality, he said, was an issue on the “back burner” pre-pandemic, with more people concerned about the efficiency and cost effectiveness of their systems. But “with everything going on, I do kind of feel like the tide may be changing,” he said.
He added that he has been contacted by a lot of facilities — from condos, to schools, to a call centre — looking for more information about how to best update their HVAC systems in light of COVID-19. Though there is a lot of interest, MacAvelia said businesses he has spoken to are sometimes hesitant to act on big overhauls without any official guidance from a governing body.
“We need some clarity there, because that’s going to help people manage their buildings properly.”
In the meantime, according to Duchaine, there is a simple solution for buildings with poorer ventilation that can’t easily make upgrades. Similar to the latest advice from the Public Health Agency of Canada, she suggests building managers consider cracking open some windows — even in winter, when possible.
Health
RCMP warn about benzodiazepine-laced fentanyl tied to overdose in Alberta – Edmonton Journal
Article content
Grande Prairie RCMP issued a warning Friday after it was revealed fentanyl linked to a deadly overdose was mixed with a chemical that doesn’t respond to naloxone treatment.
The drugs were initially seized on Feb. 28 after a fatal overdose, and this week, Health Canada reported back to Mounties that the fentanyl had been mixed with Bromazolam, which is a benzodiazepine.
Article content
Mounties say this is the first recorded instance of Bromazolam in Alberta. The drug has previously been linked to nine fatal overdoses in New Brunswick in 2022.
The pills seized in Alberta were oval-shaped and stamped with “20” and “SS,” though Mounties say it can come in other forms.
Naloxone treatment, given in many cases of opioid toxicity, is not effective in reversing the effects of Bromazalam, Mounties said, and therefore, any fentanyl mixed with the benzodiazepine “would see a reduced effectiveness of naloxone, requiring the use of additional doses and may still result in a fatality.”
From January to November of last year, there were 1,706 opioid-related deaths in Alberta, and 57 linked to benzodiazepine, up from 1,375 and 43, respectively, in 2022.
Mounties say officers responded to about 1,100 opioid-related calls for service, last year with a third of those proving fatal. RCMP officers also used naloxone 67 times while in the field, a jump of nearly a third over the previous year.
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Health
CFIA continues surveillance for HPAI in cattle, while sticking with original name for disease – RealAgriculture
The Canada Food Inspection Agency will continue to refer to highly pathogenic avian influenza in cattle as HPAI in cattle, and not refer to it as bovine influenza A virus (BIAV), as suggested by the American Association of Bovine Practitioners earlier this month.
Dr. Martin Appelt, senior director for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, in the interview below, says at this time Canada will stick with “HPAI in cattle” when referencing the disease that’s been confirmed in dairy cattle in multiple states in the U.S.
The CFIA’s naming policy is consistent with the agency’s U.S. counterparts’, as the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has also said it will continue referring to it as HPAI or H5N1.
Appelt explains how the CFIA is learning from the U.S. experience to-date, and how it is working with veterinarians across Canada to stay vigilant for signs of the disease in dairy and beef cattle.
As of April 19, there has not been a confirmed case of HPAI in cattle in Canada. Appelt says it’s too soon to say if an eventual positive case will significantly restrict animal movement, as is the case with positive poultry cases.
This is a major concern for the cattle industry, as beef cattle especially move north and south across the U.S. border by the thousands. Appelt says that CFIA will address an infection in each species differently in conjunction with how the disease is spread and the threat to neighbouring farms or livestock.
Currently, provincial dairy organizations have advised producers to postpone any non-essential tours of dairy barns, as a precaution, in addition to other biosecurity measures to reduce the risk of cattle contracting HPAI.
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Health
Toronto reports 2 more measles cases. Use our tool to check the spread in Canada – Toronto Star
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Canada has seen a concerning rise in measles cases in the first months of 2024.
By the third week of March, the country had already recorded more than three times the number of cases as all of last year. Canada had just 12 cases of measles in 2023, up from three in 2022.
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