TORONTO —
A little over two months ago, there was a titanic shift in Canada’s attitude toward COVID-19.
Almost overnight, what had been thought of as primarily a problem for other parts of the world was suddenly understood to be the greatest public health threat the country had seen in generations.
Many Canadians found themselves caught off-guard, surprised to find out that schools and workplaces were being shut down. Only in the following weeks, as new daily case counts climbed from a couple hundred to more than 1,000, did it become clear how high the toll would have been had life gone on as normal.
All of which raises an important question: Will it happen again? Will Canadians be lulled into complacency by declining numbers of new COVID-19 cases, only for another round of infections to lead to a large number of deaths that could have been prevented?
SECOND WAVE EXPECTED
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged Thursday that his government expects a second wave of COVID-19 to sweep through the country at some point.
“The question that we’re very much focused on is that, as that second wave begins, or as we start to see resurgences in a reopened economy, how quickly are we able to contain them and control them?”
Medical experts are also increasingly of the view that a second wave of COVID-19 infections spreading across Canada is a question of when, not if.
“The second wave will come, but how acute it is or how large it rises so it doesn’t overwhelm our health-care system needs to be considered,” Dr. Sandy Buchman, the president of the Canadian Medical Association, told CTV News Channel on Thursday.
That was the thinking behind the lockdown-like measures imposed in March. By severely reducing the amount of contact most Canadians had with others, and therefore curtailing the ability of the novel coronavirus to spread widely, they hoped to limit the critically ill COVID-19 patient load to a number that could be cared for within the existing capacity of the health-care system.
It worked. Hospitals and intensive care units were not overloaded here to the extent they were in many other countries.
But now, as public-gathering limits are increased and other COVID-19-inspired restrictions are relaxed, experts are warning that there is not enough information available to prove that returning to some degree of normalcy is safe – or to alert us to the arrival of a second wave.
“We need to gather more information, we need to do adequate testing in our communities, we have to do more contact tracing, and ultimately we have to do serologic testing,” Buchman said.
TESTING AND TRACING
Buchman brought the same message to the Senate’s Standing Committee of Social Affairs, Science and Technology on Wednesday, saying that Canada is “not fully prepared for a second wave” and that provinces are “gambling by reopening” without having more testing and tracing programs in place.
“We have insufficient information as to what’s out there, and we can’t make really good, evidence-informed decisions about opening up,” he told senators.
Serologic testing, also known as antibody testing, measures antibodies that appear in the blood after an infection. It can be used to detect cases of COVID-19 after the fact, even in those who never displayed symptoms, painting a clear picture of how many people have developed immunity to the virus.
Contact tracing involves being able to quickly track down everyone who may have been exposed to a newly-diagnosed COVID-19 patient. Many countries have rolled out high-tech contact tracing systems that use smartphone GPS data to determine who was in contact with a new patient.
This has not happened in Canada, but federal officials have said they are looking at dozens of options. While the actual testing and tracing work will be carried out by provincial governments, Trudeau said Thursday that Ottawa is working to help the provinces in “massively scaling up” their capacity to do so.
The lack of a contact tracing system is only one problem, though. Dr. David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, notes another: Canada still has too many new cases for combing through each patient’s history and alerting all their recent contacts to be a realistic goal.
“You can’t meaningfully do contact tracing at 300 new cases a day. You just don’t have the resources to do it,” he told CTV News Channel on Thursday.
“You can do it if you have five or 10 or 20 new cases a day.”
ANYTIME, ANYWHERE?
Asked if there will be a detectable early warning of a second wave of COVID-19 cases starting to spread through the country, Buchman suggested there is no clear answer at this point.
“That’s the essential question. We will know if we get more information,” he said.
While much of the public discussion has centred on the idea of a second wave hitting in the fall – when colder weather sends Canadians back indoors, where it is easy for the virus to spread – Fisman said it couldhappen anytime.
“People keep talking about a second wave coming in the fall. There’s no reason to expect the wave necessarily is going to come in the fall,” he said.
It is also possible that a second wave will be easier to notice and respond to in some parts of the country than in others.
“There’s reason to be concerned about the inability to really get this job done, especially in Ontario and Quebec,” Fisman said.
“The Atlantic provinces look really good. British Columbia’s shown a lot of competence, as have the Prairies. The COVID-19 pandemic story in Canada at this point is basically the story of Ontario and Quebec.”
Quebec, which has the highest COVID-19 case count and death total of any province, has started to reopen schools and businesses outside Montreal. Dr. Matthew Oughton, director of the infectious disease training program at McGill University Health Centre, told CTV News Channel on Thursday that the province “may have to go a step backwards” if the number of cases starts to shoot up.
“We have to identify all of the cases, and move quickly to put them in self-isolation,” he said.
“This is the reality of living in a pandemic. There is no perfect, risk-free solution.”
Indeed, while reopening society comes with consequences, so too does keeping it closed. Buchman said doctors are seeing patients stop seeking treatment for everything from cardiovascular disease to diabetes, while cancer screenings and child immunizations are being put off during the pandemic.
“These are really critical things,” he said.
“The public did so well by locking down, but we can’t just lock down anymore. We have to do this in a cautious, informed way.”
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.
