Subscribe to Second Opinion for a weekly roundup of health and medical science news.
Canada is entering a new phase of the pandemic as restrictions are set to ease across much of the country. But avoiding the mistakes of the past and keeping the public onside will be extremely challenging as Omicron continues to hammer our health-care system.
Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba pushed aggressively to reopen last February when the highly transmissible Alpha and Beta variants were taking off, setting the stage for a devastating third wave that led to months of reimposed restrictions in hard-hit regions.
A year later, many provinces are again forging ahead with reopening plans in the face of an even more devastating variant, while setting somewhat ambitious end dates at a time when record-high hospitalizations have just begun to show signs of peaking.
While our protection from vaccinations and prior infections may put us in a better position, infectious disease experts say Canada should take a cautious approach to reopening to avoid falling into the same traps of previous waves.
British Columbia and Ontario will begin easing limits on indoor gatherings, gyms, bars, restaurants and other venues on Monday, while Manitoba announced Friday it will extend its measures for at least another week and Quebec remains weeks away from reopening.
And while Alberta is waiting until hospitalization rates drop before beginning to lift its restrictions, Premier Jason Kenney joined Ontario Premier Doug Ford this week in boldly predicting the lifting of all COVID-19 public health measures by mid-March.
But if the last two years of the pandemic have taught us anything, it’s that the virus doesn’t work on our schedule. And while we may feel like we’re done with COVID-19, it’s not necessarily done with us.
Ontario eyes gradual reopening as experts warn Omicron isn’t over yet
8 days ago
Duration 2:00
Ontario is among the provinces eyeing steps toward reopening as COVID-19 hospitalizations level off, but health officials and experts are warning there is plenty of pandemic still to come. 2:00
Pandemic ‘chess game’ continues with Omicron
A subvariant of Omicron known as BA.2 is showing early signs of spread in Canada, with more than 100 cases detected to date. Denmark’s leading public health institute found it could be 1.5 times more infectious — highlighting the threat of the rapidly mutating virus.
“The greatest opportunity for mutations and variants to arise is when you get lots of transmission events and the virus has got opportunities to replicate itself more,” said Dr. Susy Hota, an infectious disease specialist at the University Health Network in Toronto.
“So it’s kind of this awful cycle that you get stuck in, where you have these massive surges of, say, Omicron this time around that hit so many people, and that allows for further mutations to happen and then from that may arise additional variants in the future.”
Hota said that while BA.2 remains at low levels in Canada right now, it’s important to keep an eye on its spread in other countries and ramp up our tracking efforts here, in order to make sure we detect the subvariant quickly and are prepared for further spread.
“This is a chess game — we make a move, and it makes a move, and then we make a move,” said Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases physician and associate professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
“The whole thing is — and always has been — a strategy game against a foe that has more tricks up its sleeve than we can even imagine.”
WATCH | Why Omicron could signal the pandemic’s end — with plenty of caveats:
Omicron brings hopeful signs of pandemic’s end with plenty of caveats
11 days ago
Duration 5:01
There is some optimism the Omicron wave could signal the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, but experts also point out many caveats because it’s unclear how long immunity lasts and if it will protect against future variants. 5:01
Saxinger said health officials should be communicating transparently with Canadians on what benchmarks need to be met for further reopening, as well as bringing the public onboard with what’s informing decisions to get more buy-in if things take a turn for the worse.
“There could be another curveball. A lot of people are anticipating that after this Omicron surge is over, it will be a very different landscape and I think that that’s very plausible — but I would not promise it,” Saxinger said.
“It’s just a flat-out mistake to make any promises right now. I mean, just promise transparency, promise being reactive, promise to weigh the right things — but don’t promise what will actually happen.”
Dr. David Naylor, who led the federal inquiry into Canada’s national response to the 2003 SARS epidemic and now co-chairs the federal government’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, said provinces need to “move carefully with reopening” to avoid reversing trends.
“We all are totally fed up with living in limbo,” he said. “However, it’s a potentially self-defeating strategy if the more severe measures become necessary because we didn’t wait long enough for the latest wave to recede.”
Given that PCR testing has completely dropped off a cliff in Canada, Naylor said officials must look at leading indicators, like wastewater surveillance, and lagging indicators, like hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths, to get a handle on when to lift restrictions.
Ambulance paramedics unload at Toronto Western Hospital on Jan. 10. Many provinces are forging ahead with reopening plans at a time when record-high COVID-19 hospitalizations have just begun to show signs of peaking. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Naylor said while public morale and patience has “eroded” and could lead to a “fatalistic sense” that we should just “give up and do the minimum,” that mindset won’t help control the virus.
“Those misperceptions and sentiments, if they become truly widespread, will make premature reopening more likely,” he said.
“I’d be inclined to go steady and slow, looking forward to some seasonal relief, and relying on increases in background immunity from vaccines and mild infections to get us to better weather — literally and figuratively.”
Can high population immunity fend off future waves?
As restrictions begin to lift across Canada in the coming days and weeks, time will tell if our current measures, coupled with the collective immunity levels from vaccines, boosters and infections, will protect us from another COVID-19 surge.
“We certainly have a greater degree of community-level immunity through first, second and third doses of vaccination and through recovery from infection,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases physician and member of Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine task force.
“And we can’t ignore that community-level protection will have some benefits. The question really is now, is that enough to prevent a resurgence of COVID if an aggressive reopening plan is undertaken?”
It’s difficult to predict what the coming weeks will bring as restrictions lift across much of the country, Naylor said. But one optimistic scenario could see smaller waves of highly infectious variants in the future that cause less severe disease due to our immunity levels.
That could mean reaching an endemic state with COVID-19, where the virus circulates at a manageable level, without repeated surges that threaten to overwhelm the health-care system. But that may yet be months or years away.
“There will still be a toll — particularly among vulnerable people with compromised immunity or multi-morbidity, and we have to be ready to respond,” Naylor said.
“But if that succession of smaller waves becomes the trajectory, I think the level of any restrictions imposed could ease and some sense of normalcy will return.”
Whatever the next few weeks may bring, it’s important to remember we’re not out of the woods yet — but the immunity from vaccinations and infections will hopefully put us in a better position to fend off another surge.
“We will have a very high degree of immunity against Omicron: How will that protect us against the next variant? That’s the big question,” said Dr. Irfan Dhalla, a University of Toronto medical professor and a vice-president at the Unity Health hospital network.
“Having seen the devastation of the first wave, the second wave, the third wave, the fourth wave and now the fifth wave, my own bias is toward being as prepared as we possibly can for future waves.”
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.
