Country deserves better leadership on COVID choices
Flip-flops by officials, cabinet are frustrating, dangerous
Flip-flop, flip-flop. What's that sound? It's the making of Canadian health care policy on COVID -19.
The long list of COVID policy reversals began even before the pandemic officially took hold a year ago, and continues unabated. Here's a short trip down memory lane:
COVID won't be Canada's problem; we are officially in a pandemic. There is no evidence of asymptomatic spread; asymptomatic spread is real. Masks are not helpful; everybody wear masks please. Canada will have adequate vaccines; dear U.S. President Joe Biden, please send us vaccines. Vaccines shouldn't be spaced more than three weeks apart; vaccines can be spaced four months apart. The AstraZeneca vaccine is not safe for seniors; the AstraZeneca vaccine shouldn't be given to people under 55.
And so on. It's enough to make you sick — literally.
It's true that COVID-19 is a new disease and the science is continually evolving. But as auditor general Karen Hogan chronicled in a scathing report released last week, Canada's public health officials still made a shocking number of mistakes, the top of the list being the failure of our early warning system coupled with inaccurate risk assessments.
The result was the needless deaths of thousands of seniors in care homes and congregate living centres. Shamefully, Canada has the worst record for COVID-19 deaths in long-term care homes among wealthy countries.
As for the AstraZeneca mess, it could not come at a worse time. Canada stands at a critical juncture, with over half the country in the third wave of the pandemic. In the race between virus and vaccine, there is no room for error.
The mixed messages on who should receive AstraZeneca's product have the potential to undermine confidence in the vaccine rollout and increase hesitancy. This, at a time when the only way out of lockdowns and hospitalizations is to achieve herd immunity as quickly as possible.
Through all this, the federal government has relied on advice from its health experts. The most famous face is that of Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer.
Her most egregious flip-flop was declaring that, “Putting a mask on an asymptomatic person is not beneficial, obviously, if you're not infected.” Two months passed before she took back those words. In the wake of the auditor general report, some are calling for her to resign or be fired.
Another questionable source of advice is the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI). Created in 1964, prior to the pandemic it met only three times a year to discuss vaccines for diseases such as influenza, mumps and measles.
According to David Naylor, a physician and co-chair of Canada's COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, “NACI's committees are basically made up of volunteers, many with heavy daily responsibilities during the pandemic.” Its recommendations on spacing out vaccine doses are the longest in the world and have come under fire from other scientists at home and abroad.
But the responsibility for these actions sits higher, with the federal government, the cabinet and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself. His government failed to heed the warnings from other countries. He failed to put in border controls that could have slowed the import of the virus.
He failed to procure enough vaccines in time to prevent the third wave from taking hold, betting on a (now collapsed) partnership with China when our country had already been on the outs with Beijing for almost a year over the detention of Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels. He has kept Tam in place despite her bungling. And he continues to rely on NACI, a group that may not be up to the challenge, when dealing with a once-in-a-century event.
This situation has to change. After a year of personal, social and economic upheaval, Canadians are at a breaking point. They need confidence in their public officials and their decisions. They cannot afford more flip-flops. They need leadership — from the top on down.