as covid-19 case counts continue to rise across canada, a group of local health experts are looking to countries that have better controlled the virus and are calling for a more aggressive elimination strategy here at home — a plan called #covidzero .
one of the leading proponents of covidzero is dr. andrew morris, a toronto-based infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the university of toronto. morris recently tweeted a thread about what covidzero would look like canada, writing that the aspirational strategy “sets a high bar for a country that has failed to set a bar.”
“every winning country battling covid has a #covidzero elimination strategy and mindset,” morris wrote. “none are eliminating it sans vaccine. but they’re acting like they are, with economies returning, life normalizing, and few deaths. canada [and] canadians can achieve this if we set our mind to it.”
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testing, contact tracing and isolating is key because it helps curb the spread of covid-19 and prevents people from bringing the virus to lesser-affected parts of the country. contact tracing also lets people who may have been exposed know to isolate and get tested, stomping out further transmission. authorities are not sure where most transmission is occurring in canada as data is limited, making it hard to know exactly where people are contracting covid-19.
dr. josh ng-kamstra, an alberta-based general surgeon and intensivist, tells healthing that rising case counts in many provinces “have overwhelmed, or threaten to overwhelm,” the current capacity of contact tracers. in october , soaring case counts in toronto prompted authorities to scale back on some of their contact tracing efforts to instead focus on high-risk situations as the amount of work became unsustainable.
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part of covidzero’s response is learning from other countries that have been more successful at managing the virus. morris points to countries like new zealand, vietnam, china, australia and south korea , which have relied on measures like efficient contact tracing programs, widespread testing and stringent lockdowns.
ng-kamstra says innovations in testing, like the antigen-based mass testing that has shown early success in slovakia , could be used in canada. “such innovations are insufficient on their own, but they can turn things around, and quickly,” he says.
this is something dr. irfan dhalla, an associate professor at the university of toronto’s institute of health policy, management and evaluation, acknowledged in an interview with the new york times . dhalla, who wrote about a covidzero strategy back in may, isn’t suggesting canada copies others’ response plans to a t.
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“schools are tough, we know that closing schools has a significant effect on virus transmission, so in the worst-affected areas school closures are an emergency brake,” he says. “but closing them will have immediate negative consequences for the wellbeing of children, and the potential for major long-term effects to their educational trajectory.”
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canada is large, and pandemic response plans across the country have varied. this means it’s important that regions have clear, cohesive measures that address outbreaks in their communities. and w hile this means “specific policies needed to get to covidzero in various parts of the country will differ somewhat,” the goal and principles of covidzero remain the same: stop the spread.
because there is so much regional variation in covid-19, clear, science-based messaging is needed. people need to understand public health recommendations and government rules, and this messaging needs to make sense — something experts previously stressed to healthing .
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“aiming for #covidzero gives us a common goal,” ng-kamstra recently tweeted . “the approach should be smart, innovative, and thoughtful. zero doesn’t change, and we all understand what it means. that clarity is essential to getting through this together.”
aiming for #covidzero gives us a common goal. the approach should be smart, innovative, and thoughtful. zero doesn’t change, and we all understand what it means. that clarity is essential to getting through this together. (8/)
— josh ng-kamstra mdcm, mph (@joshngkamstra) november 17, 2020
dr. isaac bogoch, a toronto-based infectious diseases physician and scientist, tweeted that it’s important there’s policies and supports in place that make sure workplaces that remain open are safe, like factories, and that there are “systems in place for paid sick leave.”
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ng-kamstra takes this one step further, saying that most canadian jurisdictions continue to fail in providing support for vulnerable populations that are affected both by the virus itself and by the measures needed to control it. these include people experiencing homelessness, people with addictions, and those working in public-facing or service jobs. black, indigenous, and people of colour — populations who are disproportionately affected by covid-19 and other social determinants of health — must be supported, too.
ignoring these people is a massive oversight and will not result in achieving wide-spread success. “singapore’s early success in controlling covid19 had a massive blind spot: the foreign workers who lived in crowded dormitories,” he says. “it was only when they recognized that supporting these workers was critical to pandemic control that they again got the virus under control.”