OUTBREAKS RAISE ALARM IN B.C., ALBERTA
As Ontario moves forward, health experts in Western Canada warn that ignoring rules could lead to ‘explosive growth’
VANCOUVER— When Dr. Bonnie Henry walked through Vancouver’s trendy Gastown neighbourhood to pick up the designer shoes named after her, and had her photo taken when she stopped to look at a street-art painting made in her honour, the celebration of her leadership in “flattening the curve” was at a high.
One month after the province entered its Phase 3 of its coronavirus restart plan, the tone in British Columbia has changed.
Now the key message is about stopping an uptick in COVID-19 cases from turning into “explosive” growth.
Just as Ontario eases into the idea of Stage 3 reopening strategies, Canada’s shining examples of pandemic response in the West — British Columbia and Alberta — find themselves back on high alert.
And what they’re going through could say a lot about what’s to come.
The uptick in cases — centred around a tourist hub in Kelowna, Calgary and a handful of health-care facilities — have put public health officials on guard that the success the West and parts of Canada have enjoyed in beating COVID-19 is fragile.
“We are no longer having safe interactions,” Henry said in her Monday update, referring to a series of Canada Day parties at bars and homes in Kelowna that have now been linked to 60 new cases of the disease.
“We do have the possibility of having explosive growth here in our outbreak, if we’re not careful,” she said.
The story is similar in Alberta, which saw a 50-per-cent increase in active cases over the weekend, after 368 new cases were identified. Canada’s daily new case numbers had slowed to an average of about 300 new cases a day, but that’s increased to an average of 460 new cases per day for the past four days.
The majority of the newly infected are young adults, many of whom have contracted the novel coronavirus by going to bars, restaurants and attending indoor parties, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, Dr. Howard Njoo, told reporters Tuesday at a briefing in Ottawa.
Njoo said he believes there is an “invincibility factor” playing into the outbreaks among young people, which is being fanned by scientific evidence emerging that shows youth who contract COVID-19 are less likely to become seriously ill.
B.C. officials confirmed the Kelowna parties, which included locals as well as people from the Vancouver area, involved primarily people in their 20s and 30s gathering in large indoor groups.
The good news is that the uptick in cases, though worrying, does not make a fullblown second wave inevitable, experts say. The West’s response at this moment will in fact be critical, they say, in helping the rest of the country understand how to navigate case increases as society opens.
Jean-Paul Soucy, a PhD student at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, who has been collecting coronavirus case numbers from across the country since the beginning of the pandemic, said it shouldn’t come as a shock that cases are going up in B.C. and Alberta, where activities such as going to restaurants and visiting tourist attractions is allowed.
“It’s certainly not unexpected that once people have been in lockdown for so long they’re going to meet one another — we’re social animals,” he said.
The question for Soucy is whether the public health response to test, trace and isolate will hold up to the increasing pressures of Phase 3.
“A lot of people will say the goal is to get to zero cases, like New Zealand,” he said. “But if we can keep this to a simmer, that would be something to celebrate and would be an achievement.”
He described the three aspects of the coronavirus fight: test, trace and isolate, as crucial pieces of a chain where, if one piece falls apart, the whole system loses its worth.
The strength of B.C. and Alberta so far has been in keeping these elements together — testing widely and consistently, diligently tracing people who may have been exposed, and getting the social buy-in necessary for people to isolate when instructed.
Testing remains consistent in the provinces, Soucy said, and contact tracing systems are well established.
But the job of a contact tracer is also getting a lot harder. Public health officials in both B.C. and Alberta said this week that people have been recently socializing with as many as 20 or 30 different people now, compared to fewer than five at the height of the coronavirus restrictions.
“If there’s one break in that chain, it could lead to things getting more out of control,” Soucy said.
Grady Topak, a Calgary business owner, learned first-hand that the coronavirus risk in Calgary — though lower than other parts of the country — still needs to be taken seriously.
A cluster of fitness studios across the city closed last week after instructors attended a private training session and contracted COVID-19.
“I can imagine walking into a location to support a friend and it might take a couple minutes to think that you’re not comfortable with this and, at that point, it’s hard to turn around and walk out,” said Topak, co-founder of YYC Cycle, which was one of the fitness studios affected, though not the host of the event.
“Maybe that’s the lesson here. That we shouldn’t stay in places where we feel uncomfortable,” Topak said. “I think this made it hit home for people, who hadn’t personally known someone with COVID-19 before, that we have to take this seriously. Starting tomorrow, we’ll be asking customers to wear masks indoors until the point they get to their bikes.”
Erin Strumpf, a professor of health economics at McGill University, said the case increases should not cause a panic.
“It’s just mathematically true that as more people leave their homes there are going to be more cases,” she said.
In fact, gathering data about where those cases are appearing, and in relation to which activities, could help public officials make more targeted recommendations for reducing the risk of spread COVID-19, and that could actually help provinces focus on opening up those parts of society residents may most be missing, she said.
“All pieces of reopening are not created equal,” she said.
“The choices we’re making now could make it less likely that we’ll be able to open daycares and schools in the fall.”
The spike in COVID-19 cases have led some open bickering.
In a Facebook group of more than 20,000 members made up of people who mostly live in the city of Penticton, B.C., many pointed fingers at young people for flocking to the area’s beaches.
“The beaches are packed. No masks, or very few are worn by young people. They are our biggest concern because they think they are immune,” one man said, to which another member fired back, “F---, I love how the older people in this town point fingers at young people.”
He instead blamed the seniors playing slo-pitch softball and crowding in pickle ball courts.
Others posted photos of crowds in different locations to shame those in attendance for their proximity to one another.
Njoo, the deputy chief public health officer, suggested some young people attending indoor parties and not following proper physical-distancing measures might be doing so because the ongoing relaxing of pandemic restrictions — including the reopening of bars and restaurants — has sent a signal that they can let their guard down.
It could be happening all over the country, but it’s up to local authorities to decide whether these establishments should be allowed to remain open, Njoo said.
“Moving forward we also recognize we need to at some point reopen our society. The tricky part, really, is trying to find that balance as we slowly as a society figure out how we move forward with the appropriate amount of caution in terms of various sectors.”
“The choices we’re making now could make it less likely that we’ll be able to open daycares and schools in the fall.” ERIN STRUMPF PROFESSOR OF HEALTH ECONOMICS, MCGILL UNIVERSITY