Feds, provinces plan road to ‘new normal’

Following more than a month of extreme physical distancing measures and a virtual shutdown of the economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the question on minds across Canada is, when will things go back to normal?

Many provinces, including P.E.I., Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan, are beginning to look at timelines for opening parts of the economy and relaxing social and recreational restrictions — some are looking more specifically at which sectors and when, on specific dates for easing restrictions on nonessential medical services and outdoor recreation, and even discussing the possibility of a return to school; others are still talking in broad, longerterm measures.

Nationally, officials say the return to life before the coronavirus will be slow and Canadians can expect to live with COVID-19 restrictions, in a sort of new normal, for many months to come.

What that new normal will look like and how long it will take to get there is precisely what officials across Canada are looking at.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeated what he has said a number of times before: until there is either a vaccine — an optimistic timeline being 12 to 18 months — or significant treatments for COVID-19, things will not be like they were precoronavirus.

But, he said, in the coming months Canadians can expect a loosening of a number of the restrictions and rules on things like personal mobility and on certain sectors of the economy.

He also said it's likely some provinces will lift certain restrictions sooner than others, as different provinces are in different parts of their epidemiological curve, but it's crucial to ensure they all use similar guidelines and principles to make those decisions.

“The process around reopening the level of freedom we'll have to visit friends and to work and to go outside will depend on the decisions and the advice that scientists give us around how to keep ourselves safe,” Trudeau said.

Last week, chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said that even as the number of cases and deaths continue to rise, Canada's epidemiological data is cause for cautious optimism, especially when it comes to the doubling rate of new cases.

On Friday, Tam said when it comes to relaxing social restrictions and easing back into a functional economy, she and her counterparts in the provinces are looking at some of the epidemic criteria for consideration.

She said public health officials across the country are systematically working through different scenarios and how the federal government and individual provinces can cautiously and thoughtfully approach that.

“When we're seeing that peak, it means we still have the downward slope of that curve and you need to get to the bottom of that wave. … You want to ensure that first epidemiological wave is under control and that your health system capacity is there should there be a surge and that you have the ability to test, detect cases and do all the contract tracing,” she said.

FUNDING RESEARCH

On Friday, the federal government unveiled $1 billion in funding for a three-pronged approach called the national medical research strategy to fight COVID-19, to help Canada move toward regaining some normalcy.

One of the key parts of that is a COVID-19 immunity task force that will track and provide reliable data on immunity.

Over two years, the task force will test at least one million Canadians, and the findings of the research will help with everything from roll-outs of a potential vaccine to determining which public health measures are most effective, Trudeau said.

Chief science adviser Dr. Mona Nemer is one of the members of that task force.

Nemer said more scientific knowledge is needed about the coronavirus to overcome it and to ensure societal wellbeing — for example, it isn't known how many people have been infected with the coronavirus because some people show no symptoms.

While the current testing, although important for tracking cases, can detect who has the coronavirus, widespread serology testing — which checks for antibodies that are generated as a response to COVID-19 — will tell researchers how many people have been infected without knowing it, Nemer said.

“Serology testing will also tell us how quickly immunity develops and also fades, and this is important in guiding our recovery strategies,” she said.

Other information scientists are still missing is how quickly the coronavirus mutates to escape detection, and whether certain individuals are more susceptible to infection or less able to overcome it.

Nemer said funding that has been announced to support the efforts of the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network will assist with that.

“Together, the immunity and the genomics initiatives will guide vaccine development and help prevent future infection,” she said.