New Canadian Covid Society to address long-term effects

A national non-profit group called the Canadian Covid Society launched on Wednesday, with co-founders saying the organization is needed as public health agencies have pulled back on COVID-19 prevention measures and awareness campaigns.

“I feel in some ways we’re filling a gap where public health has left open,” Dr. Joe Vipond, one of the society’s five cofounders, said at a news conference.

In his home province of Alberta, “there’s basically no mention of COVID. There’s no mention of long COVID. It’s really fallen off the radar for a lot of public health at this point,” said Vipond, who is an emergency physician in Calgary.

“While the acute phase of the pandemic has ended, the virus continues to cause significant chronic illness,” the Canadian Covid Society’s website says.

COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death across Canada in 2022, behind heart disease and cancer, it says.

“It still continues to be a stressor on our health system up to this present day. It is contributing to poor health and excess deaths,” said Dr. Kashif Pirzada, another co-founder of the society.

But as many Canadians want to leave COVID-19 behind, public health agencies are in a difficult position, he said.

“(In public health) one foot is in politics, one foot is in medicine. But right now, the public doesn’t want to think about this. Politicians don’t want to think about this. And public health has to respond to that,” said Pirzada, who is an emergency doctor based in Toronto.

The society’s mission is to “protect the health and safety of people in Canada against the harms of COVID and long COVID through education, engaging and empowering the public and organizations with scientific knowledge,” a slide presented at the news conference said.

It also aims to support people with long COVID, which afflicts 2.1 million people in country, according to Statistics Canada

“We have foundations for heart disease. We have foundations for cancer, but we need a group dedicated to fighting COVID-19,” said Pirzada.

The three other society founders are Nancy Delagrave, a physics professor specializing in air quality in Montreal; Cheryl White, an engineer in Toronto dedicated to reducing disease transmission; and Chris Houston, a governance expert based in Bancroft, Ont., who worked with Doctors Without Borders and the World Health Organization.

The move creates a formal organization that can build on the grassroots work that volunteers have done throughout the pandemic, Vipond said.

The society hopes to generate funding through donations and grants that will pay staff members.