Easing COVID restrictions presents challenges

Travel between provinces could pose problems

Infectious disease experts say provinces looking to relax restrictions related to COVID19 need to consider their neighbours. Prince Edward Island, where the caseload is low, is aiming to ease its public health orders on May 1 and reopen businesses in mid-May.

The Saskatchewan government outlined a plan Thursday for some businesses and services to be allowed to resume next month.

Dr. Craig Jenne, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Calgary, said easing restrictions in one province could present challenges for others.

“Many provinces in Canada have no hard borders,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press. “Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba — we are not exactly islands where we can cut off travel between provinces.

“We are going to have to make sure we’re on the same page with this.”

As of Wednesday, Saskatchewan had recorded 326 cases, including four deaths, but less than 20 per cent of cases were considered active.

Premier Scott Moe said Thursday reopening businesses and services would be done with physical distancing in place.

“We will carefully monitor the case numbers each and every day and we will adjust our plan accordingly if required,” he said.

Moe said travel was the source of many of the province’s early COVID-19 cases. “We continue to strongly discourage all non-essential interprovincial and international travel,” he said.

He said he doesn’t believe that Saskatchewan easing restrictions will be a risk to other provinces.

Next door, in Alberta, there are more than 3,400 cases, including 66 deaths.

Dr. Stephanie Smith, an associate professor in infectious diseases at the University of Alberta, said it may make sense for provinces with a low number of cases to consider letting up on COVID measures.

“When they do that, the most important thing is that they still have an ability to identify new cases and new contact tracing,” she said. “(They need) really robust testing and tracing so that you can identify any new patients and make sure they are actually self-isolating.

“It’s important in terms of ensuring you don’t get into an uncontrolled situation again.”

Jenne added that outbreaks in High River and several long-term care homes show how quickly a situation can change once the novel coronavirus starts spreading. “As soon as we let our vigilance down in screening and isolation ... we will see a spike back in Canadian communities, we will see an increase in cases, we will see an increase in hospitalizations and, unfortunately, we will see an increase in deaths once these hotspots start popping up.”

For example, an outbreak at Imperial Oil’s Kearl oilsands project in northeastern Alberta has been linked to cases in Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Nova Scotia.

“This virus does not travel in the air,” said Jenne. “It travels on people and the more people move between provincial borders and even within their own community, this is how this virus gets around.”