There’s no effective way to screen people for the novel coronavirus at the Canada-U.S. border, health experts tell Global News.
This includes the thousands of essential workers — such as nurses, doctors, truckers and airline crews — who are exempted from Canada’s ban on non-essential travel and who continue to move freely across the border.
“There isn’t a magic solution for how to make our borders absolutely airtight,” said Dr. Michael Gardam, an infectious disease specialist and chief of staff at Toronto’s Humber River Hospital.
Gardam says screening measures like those deployed at Canada’s borders — where officers ask travellers if they’re feeling ill and observe for physical signs of sickness — are ineffective.
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He says there are several reasons for this: people sometimes lie about their health conditions, and others may not be showing symptoms.
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“We know from studies that have been done over the last few months that border screening measures are sort of 50/50,” Gardam said. “They’re not great.”
Gardam said other, more invasive measures, such as checking people’s temperature when they cross the border or get on a plane, may also be unhelpful at detecting the virus because common medications, such as Advil and Tylenol, eliminate symptoms like fever and cough.
“People can answer the questions honestly and not have a temperature and then develop symptoms five minutes after they cross the border,” he said.
Cross-border travel sparks concerns
According to statistics released by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), during the first full week that the new border measures were in place, roughly 317,000 people entered Canada. This includes essential workers, such as commercial trucker drivers, which accounted for nearly half of the 187,000 land border crossings reported by the CBSA.
“There is no practical way to do full screening at the border and expect that when you go to the grocery store, food is gonna be on the shelf,” said Windsor, Ont., Mayor Drew Dilkens.
Dilkens is concerned about the safety of roughly 1,600 essential health-care workers who cross the border between Windsor and Detroit on an almost daily basis.
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But Dilkens is not advocating for a complete shutdown of the border to nurses and doctors. Doing so would be inhumane and would deprive people living on both sides of the border of vital health-care resources they need in the fight against COVID-19, he said.
Instead of closing the border to essential workers, Dilkens said public health and hospital officials in Canada and the U.S. must ensure staff have access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and that resources are available for people to practise physical distancing whenever possible.
“We know, as the hospitals over there know acutely, that if something were to happen at the border that caused a hard stop, you would literally have entire hospitals that would have to close,” he said.
Health-care workers asked to choose
As of Monday, Michigan had 17,221 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 727 associated deaths. Roughly a quarter of the cases and an equal proportion of the deaths have been recorded in Detroit.
The sudden acceleration of the virus — which has made Michigan a focal point in the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. — has Windsor health officials worried.
Dr. Wajid Ahmed, medical officer of health for the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, said he and his staff recently advised local hospitals to ask nurses and doctors working on both sides of the border to choose whether they wanted to continue working in Canada or the U.S.
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Ahmed said the request, which was first reported by the Globe and Mail on Monday, is intended to minimize risk for health-care workers and to prevent transmission of the virus from Detroit to Windsor and vice versa. He said it’s also about reducing the possibility of transmitting the virus from one health-care facility to another.
“If we can reduce the number of crossings, we can reduce the risk,” he said.
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In terms of border screening, Ahmed said there isn’t much more that can be done to detect the virus, especially in cases where people haven’t yet developed symptoms.
He said he’s heard talk about doing “spot tests” at the border, which would rely upon fast testing results to determine if someone wanting to enter Canada has COVID-19, but this type of testing can also be problematic because people who carry the virus won’t always test positive in the early stages of the illness.
This could, he said, lead to a “false sense of security” for people who test negative and then move about the community.
Like Gardam, he believes the only effective way to stop the spread of the disease among essential workers is for them to remain vigilant about social distancing and to adhere to other public health recommendations.
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He also said prioritizing testing for health-care workers, which Windsor-Essex is doing, is critical for preventing the disease from spreading.
The government, meanwhile, said it has enacted strict screening measures at the border and that anyone who shows signs of illness — regardless of how they answer screening questions — will be referred to public health officials for further questioning.
The CBSA has also stepped up its operations, including observing and questioning travellers at arrivals areas in airports, and is handing out information pamphlets to anyone who enters Canada with details about mandatory self-isolation, physical distancing and other precautionary measures they must follow.
On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked about health-care workers being forced to choose between working in Canada or the U.S. He said provincial premiers and local mayors are being asked to make “extremely difficult decisions” and that he knows they’ll do what’s right to protect their communities.
He also said it’s important that essential medical supplies and staff be allowed to move across the border uninterrupted.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia’s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
