Amid reports of the novel coronavirus’s devastating effects on global health and welfare, the worst news this week seemed to be a simple little number.
The death rate for known cases of the Wuhan virus, or COVID-19, is now measured at 3.4%, higher than earlier estimates, and several times higher than seasonal influenza.
More than 3,000 people have died out of more than 90,000 cases, and although the outbreak is largely confined to a few countries — China, Iran, Italy, Korea — the nascent outbreak is becoming “increasingly complex,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization.
This is a virus that knows no borders
He meant that the initial focus on cases and clusters has now shifted to the third C in the WHO’s advice to national governments: community transmission. Community transmission hasn’t happened in Canada yet but a new government emergency committee expects that to change.
“We can anticipate that there will be an outbreak in one of our Canadian communities. This is a virus that knows no borders and that is growing,” said Health Minister Patty Hajdu at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon.
What once seemed to be a series of disease clusters that could be isolated and contained — as on that ill-fated cruise ship in Japan, whose Canadian passengers are set to be freed from quarantine in Cornwall, Ont., on Friday — now seems likely to become a pandemic that can only be managed as it follows its own course throughout the world. This realization has kicked off a panic and heralded a new normal among the worried public.
Handwashing has become a novel virtue. Sneezing is newly anti-social behaviour. People who touch their face might just as well lick a doorknob. Masks are as common as scarves and about as effective for the general public, who tend to misuse them.
Health Minister Patty Hajdu listens as Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. Theresa Tam gives an update on the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, in Ottawa on March 4, 2020.
Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
After weeks of skepticism and sanguine reminders that this is just another cold virus, an urgency has set in. This is curious, as the WHO’s declaration of a global health emergency in January passed without causing similar upset, in part because the designation was then a borderline judgment call, first rejected then accepted within the same week.
That has all changed. In what was widely described as hitting the proverbial panic button, the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a half percentage point, but that was not enough to prevent a massive slump in stocks.
Canada followed suit on Wednesday. Finance Minister Bill Morneau warned that businesses were likely to suffer interruptions to supply, and demand from customers unable to shop under quarantine or depressed economic activity.
Italy closed all schools and universities for two weeks until March 15. Los Angeles declared an emergency of community transmission. New York City registered its first few cases, including one of unknown origin. In Britain, public health authorities were considering whether to tell people to stop shaking hands.
Jonathan Peterschmitt, a doctor infected with the new coronavirus, poses at the window of his medical office in Bernwiller, France, on March 4, 2020.
Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images
The virus is out and about, and causing trouble, for companies as much as people. Lufthansa grounded 150 planes because of its effects on their business. The producers of the new James Bond movie delayed its spring release to the fall. Shopify cancelled a conference in Toronto in May. Australia was struck by a supermarket run on toilet paper by people anticipating quarantine or shortages.
All this has prompted concerns that the panic volume is a few levels too high for the actual crisis.
“As Canadians, if we can maintain our sang-froid, we should be fine,” said Heather MacDougall, a medical historian at the University of Waterloo, and an expert in the history of pandemics including the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and Toronto’s SARS outbreak in 2003.
“The unknown is so much more frightening than the known,” she said. The trick is that the unknown is not necessarily more dangerous.
For one thing, the interest rate cuts are less expressions of panic over the virus than reflections of changes to global manufacturing patterns, MacDougall said. If Chinese manufacturing slows down, everything slows down, and the business world is at risk.
“It’s fascinating to think that a disease could cause this challenge to an economic system that is so heavily interconnected,” she said.
After SARS, the Bank of Canada estimated the outbreak cut gross domestic product by 0.1%, a loss that was soon recovered. On Wednesday, similarly, markets rallied strongly, in part because of the rate cut.
For another thing, COVID-19 is a pretty mild illness most of the time, not much more than a normal cold for healthy people. And the true number of cases is certainly under-reported, so the true overall death rate is lower than the current measure.
More countries do not have cases (119) than do (75), according to the WHO. Of the countries that do have cases, more than half have fewer than ten.
The Yomiuri Giants and Tokyo Yakult Swallows play a pre-season baseball game in an empty Tokyo stadium amid fears of the coronavirus spreading.
Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
SARS had a much higher death rate, but was less easily spread, so with fewer cases to deal with, containment made for a better strategy and in time it was snuffed out without spreading much beyond Toronto.
MacDougall described SARS as a study in a health system being overwhelmed, with no answers to the central questions until the whole thing was over. With the novel coronavirus, however, the key questions were being asked and answered from the beginning, informed by previous experiences with SARS and the more recent Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
In SARS, it was not until quite late in the outbreak that the virus was even identified, compared to this time, when the Chinese had identified it within a few days, and shared that information.
“Big difference if you know what you’re looking for,” MacDougall said.
If we can maintain our sang-froid, we should be fine
So the future of COVID-19 is likely to look something like past pandemics, which is to say it will peak, then pass.
She noted that stories of price-gouging on hand-sanitizer and face masks recall stories in the Spanish Flu outbreak about profiteering and hoarding of garlic and camphor, which were thought to be preventatives.
“Human nature is what pretty much stays the same,” MacDougall said.
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.
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