The World Health Organization has ended the global COVID-19 emergency, citing increased immunity, fewer deaths and less pressure on hospitals. But while the situation with the virus has improved worldwide, it has also exposed major issues with Canada’s health-care system.
Canadian experts said Friday that regardless of WHO’s decision, COVID will remain a challenge to public health for years to come and has left lasting scars on the health-care system.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s provincial health officer and chair of the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health, told CBC News that while the emergency phase of the pandemic is ending, COVID shed light on problems in long-term care and hospitals that need to be addressed.
“We have to pay attention to ensuring that we have that surge capacity in our health-care system,” she said, adding that COVID also exposed “basic societal inequities” around pay and staffing in the system.
“This is another virus that is in our communities, it’s going to be with us for a period of time and it adds to that baseline number of people that are going to require hospital care periodically in our community,” Henry said. “So we need to add that on top of, and not go back to, the very stretched system we had before.”
The pandemic, which was first declared an international crisis by WHO, the United Nations’ health agency, on Jan. 30, 2020, resulted in unprecedented lockdowns, economic upheaval and the deaths of at least seven million people worldwide and more than 52,000 people in Canada.
But the death toll is likely much higher than reported, and WHO estimates it could be more than 20 million globally.
“It’s with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday. “That does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat.”
Following WHO’s declaration, the Public Health Agency of Canada said in a statement that it will “continue its work with provinces and territories to implement a long-term, sustainable approach to the ongoing management of COVID-19.”
WHO says COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency
World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says population immunity has increased from vaccination and infection, and the pressure on health systems from COVID-19 has eased.
Lessons for a fragile health-care system
COVID hospitalizations still remain stubbornly high in Canada, with 2,881 hospital beds occupied by COVID patients across the country, according to the latest federal data, despite continuing to decline since the beginning of the year. But the numbers are a far cry from where they once were.
“We had some very, very challenging times with COVID,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases physician at Toronto General Hospital, recalling instances where adults had to be treated in pediatric wards and authorities built tents outside ERs to treat the overflow of patients in the spring of 2021.
He said that WHO’s declaration should be treated as an opportunity to reflect on the country’s flawed health-care system and how it can be improved going forward.
In many parts of the country, emergency rooms remain under immense strain despite the decline in COVID hospitalizations.
“It’s a patchwork of many different systems that don’t necessarily fit well together,” Bogoch said.
“Many people working in health care would have told you this years before the pandemic, but it was exposed during the pandemic.”
Dr. Prabhat Jha, a professor of global health epidemiology at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said the global reality is that we now have stronger population immunity from a combination of infection and vaccination — but the crisis isn’t over.
“We still have incredible challenges when it comes to our health-care system, particularly when it comes to primary health,” he said, adding that vaccination infrastructure needs to be maintained in Canada for COVID and other viruses to prevent a further burden on hospitals.
“What is needed is to strengthen public health systems, strengthen the surveillance, the ability to get out rapid tests and vaccination. In peacetime, you don’t let the entire infrastructure erode.”
More than 77 per cent of Canadian adults and close to 90 per cent of young adults (aged 17 to 24) are estimated to have previously had the disease as of mid-January, according to national blood donor data from the federal government’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force.
Those high levels of infection, combined with the more than 83 per cent of Canadians who’ve received at least two doses of a COVID vaccine, better treatment access and less severe infections than previous strains, have led to stronger immune protection against a virus that continues to spread globally.
But only about two thirds of Canadians over the age of 60 have been previously infected, and fewer than 20 per cent have received a shot in the past few months, meaning there is still a significant part of the population vulnerable to infection and hospitalization.
Past and future challenges
Experts have warned that the pandemic’s ongoing burden on the health-care system will be felt for years to come, with long COVID affecting a subset of those infected, and delays for cancer screenings and surgeries causing massive backlogs in Canada’s system.
Dawn Bowdish, an associate professor at McMaster University in Hamilton and a Canada Research Chair in Aging and Immunity, said maintaining vaccination rates, particularly among more vulnerable populations, will be crucial going forward.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s provincial health officer, shown last year, says WHO’s pronouncement is an emotional reminder of how challenging the last three years have been for Canadians. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
“COVID is still worse than the flu,” Bowdish said. “COVID is in now the top three causes of death and will probably persist — and that means just like the flu will have surges where health-care capacity is at its maximum and there will be compromises for other treatments.”
B.C.’s Dr. Bonnie Henry said that while the end of the emergency phase of the pandemic wasn’t unexpected, it’s an emotional reminder of how challenging the last three years have been for Canadians.
“Adversity introduces us to ourselves, and I think across this country, across this province, people have been generous and kind and resourceful, and brave,” Henry said, adding that Canadians stepped up to get vaccinated across the country when it mattered most.
“Let’s use this as another opportunity to move forward with coming together and not being polarized, not trying to make this an issue. Let’s remember the things that we learned through this about how we can support each other.”
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.
