Provinces must be ready ‘to put the brakes on quickly,’ Tam warns
Too much still unknown about more contagious variants of COVID-19
OTTAWA — With new and more contagious variants of COVID-19 escalating in Canada, provincial governments lifting lockdown restrictions need to be ready to slam them back in place at a moment’s notice, Canada’s chief public health doctor said Tuesday.
At the same time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took another step toward trying to keep more variants from getting into Canada, with a plan to start making people arriving in Canada by land show recent negative COVID-19 tests.
Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Canada probably doesn’t have a full picture of the Canadian presence of more-contagious variants of the virus behind COVID-19. But because they could become the most prevalent sources of infection in Canada, any sign that they’re beginning to spread needs to be met with a rapid and decisive public health response.
“You’ve got to put the brakes on quickly,” she said.
While overall case counts have declined in the last week — something Tam said is excellent — the number of cases of the variants has doubled.
She said the number of cases of the variants has doubled in the last week, and the B.1.1.7 variant that was first identified in the United Kingdom has a very good chance of becoming the most common source of COVID-19 infections in Canada. It is believed to be 35 to 40 per cent more transmissible than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus that has been behind most of Canada’s infections to date.
“It’s just going to be more difficult to control one once the acceleration occurs,” said Tam.
But Tam said Canada is not yet screening every positive case to see which variant is behind it. That may begin to happen as total positive cases drop, making it easier to screen them all.
Several provinces are lifting strict lockdown measures as case counts continue to come down. Ontario and Quebec both reported their lowest daily counts since mid-autumn on Tuesday.
Quebec began loosening its restrictions Monday and Ontario announced Monday it will begin ending its stay-at-home order over the next week for most of the province, and for the hot zones in and around Toronto later in February.
Trudeau hasn’t yet implemented a plan to force air travellers to stay at quarantine hotels for three days after arriving, but he said as of next week, nonessential workers arriving at land borders will have to show negative PCR COVID-19 tests completed less than three days before arriving.
Travellers who arrive without the test results will be fined up to $3,000 and subjected to increased enforcement of quarantine measures.
However land travellers are not currently going to be sent to the mandatory quarantine hotels.