Jewish General banks on tech in COVID battle

Serological testing for antibodies, app that monitors vital signs some of new tools

Premier François Legault suggested on Tuesday that authorities are “slowly gaining control” of the coronavirus as the number of COVID -19 deaths has declined and hospitalizations plateaued. At the same time, however, he warned that the virus is “still prowling” not only in Montreal but across the province.

What public health authorities are worried about is the possibility of a second wave of COVID -19 cases, or at the very least, more outbreaks. Health Minister Danielle Mccann disclosed that new clusters of cases have flared up recently in three long-term care centres (CHSLDS) — two in the Quebec City area — and a third in Côte-st-luc.

The enormous challenge in the greater Montreal region will be to ramp up elective surgeries in hospitals and reopen retail stores while preventing a second wave or reducing its intensity. At the Jewish General Hospital, a designated COVID -19 treatment centre, authorities are spearheading efforts to do just that with two initiatives.

As early as next Monday, the Jewish General will start carrying out serological tests of its staff. Unlike the COVID-19 screening to date, serological tests do not detect the coronavirus in the blood but rather the presence of antibodies against it. Test results confirming antibodies are not a guarantee that an individual is immune from a future COVID-19 infection, but the results will give authorities a new tool to fight the pandemic in Canada’s epicentre.

In the absence of serological testing, hospitals have sent nurses to CHSLD hot zones almost blindly — not knowing whether they had any kind of immunity against the coronavirus. Although nurses have worn personal protective equipment, some probably contracted COVID-19 anyway and transmitted it back into the community even before showing symptoms.

Under the new strategy, the Jewish General will be more likely to dispatch to CHSLDS those doctors, nurses and orderlies who have antibodies against the coronavirus. Workers will still have to don masks and gloves, but the hope is that this approach will help control outbreaks with a lot less collateral damage.

“Right now, we have nothing else,” Dr. Karl Weiss, chief of infectious diseases at the Côtedes-neiges hospital, said in an interview on Tuesday.

“I think it’s going to be an extremely good tool to know who may be protected and who is not. And we can probably tailor our strategy a lot more by doing that.”

The Jewish General and Ste-justine Hospital, also a designated COVID-19 centre, gambled correctly that Health Canada would approve the machines they had already purchased for serological testing. In this sense, Quebec has a head start against some other jurisdictions that have not yet purchased the machines — a welcome development after the province has reported the highest number of COVID-19 infections and deaths in Canada.

The second initiative that the Jewish General is on the verge of launching a vital-signs monitoring app, which it intends to have downloaded by the 10,000 employees in its administrative region, known as the Montreal Centre-west CIUSSS. This app is not to be confused with the contact-tracing one that Legault spoke about on Monday.

Health Canada has not yet approved for widespread use the vital-signs monitoring app. It’s still being tested at the Jewish General. Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, executive director of the CIUSSS, said that pending Health Canada approval, it’s possible to allow health workers to download it to their smartphones.

The Quebec Health Ministry is excited about the app’s potential. Developed by a Tel Aviv company in collaboration with a Montreal health technology firm, the app allows users to monitor some of their vital signs by simply staring into their phone’s screen.

One of the early signs of COVID-19 — sometimes even before those who are infected may feel symptoms — is a high respiratory rate and low oxygen-saturation in the blood. Should health workers at home feel a bit off, they can peer into their smartphones and if the readings are abnormal, they’ll be to self-isolate pending a definitive diagnosis.

Both the serological tests and the vital-signs monitoring app are far from perfect technologies. However, as Weiss noted, they’re the only modern tools we have short of a vaccine or drug. Since the pandemic struck Quebec, authorities have relied largely on physical distancing and quarantines — measures first deployed in the 14th century to combat the Black Death.

Those measures must still be used diligently. But it’s promising that authorities are taking proactive measures to avoid or minimize a second wave.