With children returning to the classroom, some companies are looking at it Bringing employees back to the office, the fourth wave of the delta-driven epidemic continued to grow, with case numbers rising sharply across western Canada.
In some areas, they reached levels that led to public health restrictions during the second and third waves, raising the question of whether the fall would lead to another lockdown or a set of strict public health measures across the country.
But Canada’s vaccination rate means that this fall is different from the fall of 2020, says Nazim Muhagen, professor of community health and epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan School of Medicine in Saskatoon.
Muhagen told Brian Goldman, host black white art coat And dose.
Instead, Muhajir expects a more focused strategy of public health measures this fall, including a regional approach to mandatory mask-wearing, social distancing, and proof of vaccination documentation in areas with high COVID-19 numbers.
“I think we will deal with disruptions that occur in certain places as needed,” he said.
“These actions should occur when the prevalence rates of COVID or background COVID are higher than in other places.”
However, with cases rising, some worry that those focused measures won’t happen fast enough to keep schools and workplaces safe and avoid overburdening the health care system.
Muhagen, who is also a member of the federal government’s newly formed research network focusing on variables of concern, says travel within Canada adds a complicating factor.
He said: “There is no city, and no place has an island.” “We have to make sure that we warn people who travel between cities, especially between places with high incidence, and high prevalence in COVID-19 places to reduce infection and reduce the spread of COVID-19.”
Need to do more to keep children safe
One factor that would help, Muhagen says, is faster testing in Canada. He says countries such as Denmark and the United Kingdom have done a better job of introducing rapid tests that people can administer themselves on a large scale.
“We didn’t understand that in our country,” he said. “We are just now… preparing for Quick test in schools. We should have done it again in September [2020]. I think the ability to test, and especially the ability for rapid testing, was really needed in Canada.”
Young children who cannot yet be vaccinated are a serious concern for immigrants.
“We need to keep our children – who go back to school unvaccinated, and therefore unprotected in gathering places for extended periods – safe,” he said.
“I fear this fourth wave will turn into a wave that will disproportionately affect our children and youth.”
He hopes to see children under the age of 12 be able to receive their vaccinations by the end of this year or early 2022.
“This cannot come soon enough,” he said. “We don’t know much about the prolonged COVID. This is another issue that we have to deal with. Children may be infected with the COVID virus for a long time. And so we have a lot to do this fall to keep our residents and our children safe.”
Migrants aren’t seeing enough of this happening yet.
“In two provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, they have no public health measures this fall,” he said. “Public health measures were lifted in July, just sort of before the beginning of the fourth wave. In fact, the fourth wave could have been caused by the lifting of public health measures or an acceleration.”
Alberta emergency doctor describes ‘crisis’
Muhagen urges public health leaders to reconsider these measures as we approach fall.
“Our public health leaders and our political leaders have to be brave and have to address this problem of not having enough public health measures to keep people safe.”
Dr. Chazma Mithani, an Edmonton emergency room physician, agrees that COVID-19 protection measures are necessary, but says the government in that county is not taking steps to avoid a crisis this fall.
Mithani is concerned about a “lack of leadership” at the county level when it comes to reintroducing protection measures to help mitigate the spread of the disease.
“It is very clear that what is happening now is not sustainable,” she said. “We are in a situation in hospitals where cases come quickly. We are in a staff crisis.”
Although Edmonton City Council voted this week to Reintroducing a state mask in that city, Mithani says there is a need to mandate the boycott mask. She says low vaccination rates in some rural Alberta translate into high test-positive rates in those areas.
Mithani wants to see the county government bring in a vaccine passport system for non-essential activities. British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba and Ontario have confirmed that they will introduce such a system in the coming weeks.
It also says the county should consider restrictions on indoor gatherings as activities shift indoors this fall.
“Other provinces are doing this. We haven’t heard anything from our leaders,” she said. “There is certainly a need to take measures at this time.”
CBC has contacted the Alberta Health Department government for comment, but has yet to hear back.
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