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Why Canadians need to keep their guard up in the 4th wave — even if they're fully vaccinated – CBC.ca

Published

3 years ago

August 28, 2021

This is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly roundup of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers every Saturday morning. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.

Canadians are entering one of the most confusing chapters of the pandemic — and many may be left wondering why we’re not where we’d hoped to be after becoming one of the most vaccinated countries in the world.

Reports of waning immunity from COVID-19 vaccines, the potential need for booster shots and the possibility of breakthrough infections among the fully vaccinated may be leading many of us to second guess what we can and can’t do safely in the fourth wave.

And the more contagious, potentially more deadly delta variant has prolonged the pandemic, made daily life more difficult to navigate and turned back the clock on our collective plans to return to a relatively normal life.

“Everyone needs this damned virus to go away,” said 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. “But it’s not done with us yet.”

It was easy to think that once most of us rolled up our sleeves and did our part to get vaccinated and protect ourselves and our communities from COVID-19 that this would all be over, but the unfortunate truth is that we still have a ways to go.

“We need to rethink this,” said Linsey Marr, an expert on virus transmission at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. “It is emotionally upsetting because we thought we saw the light at the end of the tunnel — but apparently the tunnel is longer.”

Despite efforts to stave off another wave of the pandemic through widespread vaccination, Canada is continuing to see a troubling rise in COVID-19 levels across much of the country. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Unvaccinated driving Canada’s 4th wave

The hard truth is that despite our collective efforts to stave off another wave of the pandemic through widespread vaccination, Canada is continuing to see a troubling rise in COVID-19 levels across much of the country.

Over the past week, new COVID-19 cases have risen to an average of 2,848 per day — an increase of 29 per cent over the previous seven days.

Daily hospitalizations have also climbed 39 per cent week-over-week to an average of 917 across the country, while ICU admissions are also up by an average of 29 per cent per day to 340 over the past week.

That’s despite having 66 per cent of the Canadian population fully vaccinated — a number that has plateaued in recent weeks, but is remarkably high nonetheless.

So why isn’t that enough? The answer lies with those who haven’t yet gotten a shot.

Since vaccines became available in December, just 0.8 per cent of cases, one per cent of hospitalizations and 1.4 per cent of deaths from COVID-19 have been in fully vaccinated Canadians, according to the latest available data from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

“When we look at where cases and certainly hospitalizations are showing up right now, we’re seeing massive over-representation in unvaccinated communities,” said Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor of viral pathogenesis at the University of Manitoba and Canada Research Chair of emerging viruses. “So the vaccines are working.”

But there are still millions of Canadians who have yet to get vaccinated — either by choice or due to a lack of access or eligibility — and that’s putting all of us at risk.

Unvaccinated Canadians pose risks to vaccinated

The bottom line is the vaccines aren’t perfect (and were never purported to be) and even the fully vaccinated are at some risk of COVID-19, which adds to the confusion of how Canadians should proceed in the weeks and months ahead.

Dr. Allison McGeer, a medical microbiologist and infectious disease specialist at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital who worked on the front lines of the SARS epidemic in 2003, says the unvaccinated pose two different threats to vaccinated Canadians in the fourth wave.

“Firstly, they pose a direct risk of transmission, and while the vaccine is very effective at protecting you from serious illness and death — it’s not 100 per cent. Nothing in life is 100 per cent,” she said.

“The second thing that unvaccinated people do is they increase the spread of coronavirus in the population. So if you release restrictions, unvaccinated people contribute substantially more to the growth of transmission in the community.”

To put it bluntly, the longer the remaining Canadians put off getting a shot — and until we can get kids under 12 vaccinated — the more the pandemic drags on.

And while we’ve come a long way since the beginning of the pandemic, we’re still nowhere near where we need to be to control the delta variant.

Naylor says that even though Canada has vaccinated over 83 per cent of our eligible population with one dose and more than 75 per cent with two, that’s still not enough to stave off a fourth wave.

“That’s very helpful and should mitigate the toll of the fourth wave compared to earlier waves,” he said. “But it makes no sense to leave a lot of immunological room for this virus to spread and cause more harm.”

Delta has changed the rules of the game — raising the immunity threshold we need to hit, increasing risk in our day-to-day lives and meaning even fully vaccinated Canadians need to keep their guard up. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Public Health Ontario, a provincial government agency, said in a recent report that the delta variant has kicked the possibility of herd immunity further down the road — meaning we may now need an estimated 90 per cent of the population fully vaccinated to get there.

“Vaccines are not a panacea, but if everybody got vaccinated — this is done,” said Raywat Deonandan, a global health epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa. “Despite the fact these vaccines aren’t perfect.”

Delta changing rules of the game

The problem we face at this stage of the pandemic is that delta has changed the rules of the game — raising the immunity threshold we need to hit, increasing risk in our day-to-day lives and meaning even fully vaccinated Canadians need to keep their guard up.

But instead of coming together in a cohesive way, the country is once again divided over vaccine passports, mask mandates and reinstating public health restrictions — leaving a patchwork system across the country that leaves room for the virus to spread.

Ontario and Alberta have vehemently rejected the idea of vaccine passports to date, although Ontario may soon change course, while British Columbia joined Quebec and Manitoba in announcing passports for the fully vaccinated in response to the fourth wave.

Saskatchewan announced this week that not only would it not be implementing vaccine passports — it also won’t reintroduce indoor mask mandates or lower capacity limits on gatherings despite rising COVID-19 levels.

That’s despite the fact that both B.C. and Quebec saw massive upticks in vaccinations after introducing vaccine passports and Manitoba brought back mandatory masks indoors.

“I’m really disappointed that some provinces have not moved forward with vaccine certificate programs. This isn’t about civil liberties. It’s like smoking in a crowded restaurant,” said Naylor.

“Vaccine certificates are also a spur to those who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated to get on with protecting themselves and others. One can only hope all the premiers eventually wake up to the harm they are doing by side-stepping this sensible measure.”

WATCH | B.C. announces vaccine passport amid COVID-19 spike

B.C. announces vaccine passport amid COVID-19 spike

5 days ago

B.C. has followed Quebec’s lead and will implement a vaccine passport system to access non-essential services. 2:43

The reality is that until that happens, Canadians may need to take matters into their own hands by using the proven tools we have at hand to blunt the worst of a delta-driven fourth wave.

“We have to appreciate that there’s a balance,” Kindrachuk said. “Vaccines are certainly an important way out of the pandemic for us, but they’re not the only way.”

Those tools include wearing high quality masks when needed, filtering the air indoors and avoiding crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation — especially with the unvaccinated.

Canadians may need to take matters into their own hands by using the proven tools we have at hand to blunt the worst of a delta-driven fourth wave. (Peter Power/The Canadian Press)

“Delta is obviously much more transmissible and the vaccine helps protect against that, but it’s not 100 per cent. So it almost puts us back where we were a year ago with a less transmissible virus and no vaccines,” Marr said.

“At the same time, it’s not as upsetting as the first time around because we know what we need to do.”

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Justin Trudeau’s Announcing Cuts to Immigration Could Facilitate a Trump Win

Published

3 hours ago

November 5, 2024

Nick Kossovan

Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.

Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.

Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.

My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5^th.

Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.

My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.

To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.

Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…

The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.

The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.

The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.

Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.

In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.

If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.

Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.

______________________________________________________________

Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s

on his mind from Toronto. You can follow Nick on Twitter and Instagram @NKossovan.

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Former athletes lean on each other to lead Canada’s luge, bobsled teams

Published

4 hours ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

CALGARY – Sam Edney and Jesse Lumsden sat on a bench on Parliament Hill during an athlete celebration after the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Having just represented Canada in their sliding sports — Lumsden in bobsled and Edney in luge — the two men pondered their futures together.

“There was actually one moment about, are we going to keep going? Talking about, what are each of us going to do? What’s the next four years look like?” Edney recalled a decade later.

“I do remember talking about that now. That was a big moment,” Lumsden said.

As the two men were sounding boards for each other as athletes, they are again as high-performance directors of their respective sliding sports.

Edney, an Olympic relay silver medallist in 2018 and the first Canadian man to win a World Cup gold medal, became Luge Canada’s HPD upon his retirement the following year.

Lumsden, a world and World Cup bobsled champion who raced his third Olympic Games in 2018, leaned on his sliding compatriot when he returned from five years of working in the financial sector to become HPD at Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton in July.

“The first person I called when BCS reached out to me about the role that I’m in now is Sam,” Lumsden said recently at Calgary’s WinSport, where they spent much of their competitive careers and now have offices.

“It’s been four months. I was squatting in the luge offices for the first two months beside him.

“We had all these ideas about we’re going to have weekly coffees and workouts Tuesday and Thursday and in the four months now, we’ve had two coffees and zero workouts.”

Canada has won at least one sliding-sport Olympic medal in each of the last five Winter Games, but Edney and Lumsden face a challenge as team leaders that they didn’t as athletes.

WinSport’s sliding track, built for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and where Edney and Lumsden did hundreds of runs as athletes, has been closed since 2019 needing a $25-million renovation.

There is no sign that will happen. WinSport took the $10 million the provincial government offered for the sliding track and put the money toward a renovation of the Frank King Lodge used by recreational skiers and snowboarders.

Canada’s only other sliding track in the resort town of Whistler, B.C., has a fraction of Calgary’s population from which to recruit and develop athletes.

“The comparison is if you took half the ice rinks away in the country, hockey and figure skating would be disarray,” Edney said.

“It just changes the dynamic of the sports completely, in terms of we’re now scrambling to find ways to bring people to a location that’s not as easy to get to, or to live out of, or to train out of full time.

“We’re realizing how good we had it when Calgary’s (track) was here. It’s not going to be the end of us, but it’s definitely made it more difficult.”

Lumsden, a former CFL running back as well as an Olympian, returned to a national sport organization still recovering from internal upheaval that included the athlete-led ouster of the former president and CEO after the 2022 Winter Olympics, and Olympic champion pilot Kaillie Humphries suing the organization for her release to compete for the U.S. in 2019.

“NSOs like Luge Canada and Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, they’re startups,” Lumsden said. “You have to think like a startup, operate like a startup, job stack, do more with less, especially in the current environment.

“I felt it was the right time for me to take my sporting experience and the skill set that I learned at Neo Financial and working with some of the most talented people in Canada and try to inject that into an NSO that is in a state of distress right now, and try to work with the great staff we have and the athletes we have to start to turn this thing around.”

Edney, 40, and Lumsden, 42, take comfort in each other holding the same roles in their sports.

“It goes both ways. I couldn’t have been more excited about who they hired,” Edney said. “When Jesse was coming in, I knew that we were going to be able to collaborate and work together and get things happening for our sports.”

Added Lumsden: “We’ve been friends for a long time, so I knew how he was going to do in his role and before taking the role, having the conversation with him, I felt a lot of comfort.

“I asked ‘are you going to be around for a long time?’ He said ‘yeah, I’m not going anywhere.’ I said ‘OK, good.'”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

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Billie Jean King Cup and Davis Cup encourage donations for Spanish flood recovery efforts

Published

4 hours ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

MALAGA, Spain (AP) — With the finals of the Billie Jean King Cup and Davis Cup set to be played in Malaga, Spain, this month, the International Tennis Federation is making a donation to the Spanish Red Cross to support relief and recovery efforts for the recent catastrophic flooding in the country.

The ITF and its two team tournaments said in a news release Tuesday that they “express their deepest sympathy to the victims and support for the communities and families affected by the devastating floods in Spain and its regions.”

The Billie Jean King Cup and Davis Cup, along with the ITF, “are donating to the Cruz Roja, and we encourage all our fans and followers to contribute as well.”

The ITF did not say how much it is donating.

Authorities have recovered more than 200 bodies in the eastern Valencia region after heavy downpours caused flash flooding. Police, firefighters and soldiers continued to search Tuesday for an unknown number of missing people.

The Billie Jean King Cup matches are scheduled for Nov. 13-20, and the Davis Cup — the last event of 22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal’s career — is set for Nov. 19-24, all in Malaga.

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