researchers study covid in montreal's orthodox jewish community

by: rené bruemmermontreal’s orthodox jewish community, which was disproportionately affected by covid-19, is the subject of a long-term research study looking at participants’ immunity levels and how to best protect other marginalized communities across canada.the high numbers of covid-19 cases among orthodox jews spurred the refuah v’chesed medical clinic in the mile end to approach mcgill university’s faculty of medicine and health sciences and propose the collaborative study, backed by the government of canada through the covid-19 immunity task force.“we feel it’s a community that can share a lot of lessons for us,” said sociologist dr. peter nugus, associate professor in mcgill’s department of family medicine and principal investigator of the study. “togetherness is a very important value in this community. it’s the same sort of thing we’ve all been facing — how do we have a shared life and what is the relationship between individual liberty and the public good?”details of the research project, which has been under way for two months and will continue for another year and a half, are being released tuesday.after more than a dozen planning meetings between scientists and members of the jewish community, a multi-disciplinary team of sociologists, anthropologists, epidemiologists and biostatisticians was formed to study how the disease affected this segment of the population.the first goal is to determine how prevalent immunity to the sars-cov-2 virus is in the orthodox jewish community, whether through infection or vaccination or both, nugus said, “acknowledging members’ shared genetics and health issues, beliefs and behaviours.”researchers are taking blood samples from 1,250 participants before and after vaccinations to study immune responses. they will also look at how strong immune responses remain over time.the team will survey all participants, do in-depth interviews, and conduct observation studies within the orthodox jewish community to understand participants’ daily lives and challenges.“we wanted to know, within this tight-knit community, to have an idea of how the disease is playing out, and what the immunity levels of the people are,” said aron friedlander, senior medical liaison for refuah v’chesed. “we know many in the community had covid, but many didn’t have any symptoms at all, so this was one of the reasons we wanted go through with this.” reasons for the above average covid-19 figures are still being studied, friedlander said. large numbers of children as well as multi-generational families living together are among the theories.the teams are interviewing members of several different orthodox jewish groups in and around the city, visiting community centres and synagogues and knocking on 800 doors in outremont and the mile end to distribute information and ask for participation. they’ve lined up 16 vaccination clinics to date, where participants are also asked if they’re willing to give blood to check for antibody levels.“we’ve been pleasantly surprised at the generosity and preparedness to participate,” nugus said. “they’ve said: ‘yes, i want to do this for the community — this is how we learn about ourselves.’ ”on monday, nugus was in the boisbriand suburb north of montreal.the tosh community of 4,000 hasidic jews living there made headlines when an outbreak early in the pandemic spurred public health officials to order the entire community to quarantine.the more they learn about the orthodox communities, the more researchers found they have in common with everyone else, nugus said. they want to stay healthy. they want their loved ones to stay healthy. the levels of observance of safety protocols and willingness to get vaccinated are similar to those seen in society at large — most are willing, but some aren’t, he said.research that looks at both immunology as well as human behaviour is crucial for governments to figure out how to best tackle future waves of the virus, or new pandemics, nugus said.“we’re not controlling nature; nature is still wreaking revenge. so we really have to develop these ways of investigating that combine the immunology with the sociology, looking at the behaviours and beliefs as well.“if health policy comes from what is important to people and an understanding of why people do the things they do, and how and why and where people gather in the way that they do, then there’s likely to be more compliance.“ultimately it’s the behaviours that determine whether a government policy works down the line.”rbruemmer@postmedia.com