The latest on the coronavirus outbreak for Nov. 24.
- Coronavirus tracker: Follow the spread of COVID-19 as case numbers remain high in most of Canada.
- Oilsands staffing, rotational workers leading to COVID-19 case spread.
- Canada’s public health chief has a blunt message about holiday planning.
- Two major hurricanes in Honduras raise fears of COVID-19 spread in shelters.
- Read more: Its not at all clear when Canada would get imported vaccines for distribution once they’re approved; Halifax’s restaurant association is actually calling for establishments to temporarily halt indoor dining.
‘A deep, dark sense of foreboding’ as Alberta braces for surge of COVID-19 illness, likely deaths
The number of patients in hospital with COVID-19 has tripled in the past four weeks in Alberta, but a Calgary emergency room physician fears December will bring new levels of suffering, as the current surge in coronavirus cases translates into more people sick and more people dying.
“There’s a deep, dark sense of foreboding,” says Dr. Joe Vipond of the mood at the Rockyview General Hospital. Roughly 3.5 per cent of Albertans diagnosed with COVID-19 have wound up in hospital so far, Vipond noted, and roughly one per cent have ended up dying.
Alberta for the past two days has logged more than 1,500 coronavirus cases and now has more than 13,100 active cases, the most anywhere in Canada despite being the fourth most populous province. Follow here for expected Alberta changes to deal with virus spread.
Premier Jason Kenney, Health Minister Tyler Shandro and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw were to appear at a news conference Tuesday where it was expected that new restrictions would be announced in order to curb the spread.
Vipond is frustrated it has taken this long for the government to consider serious countermeasures, as the trajectory of the spread has been consistent — and predictable — for some time. “We’ve seen [new-case] doubling times of two weeks for at least six weeks,” he told CBC News.
Malgorzata Gasperowicz, a Calgary-based evelopmental biologist and independent researcher who has been tracking Alberta’s COVID-19 data closely, says even if the province were to be locked down overnight, the province should still expect to see a surge of deaths in the coming weeks from the high number of existing infections.
Click below to watch more from The National
Two COVID-19 hotspots in Ontario, Toronto and Peel Region, have new lockdown restrictions, which should limit in-store shopping to essential items only. But big box stores that sell groceries are using that loophole to their advantage, while small businesses are out of luck. 2: 04
IN BRIEF
N.L. premier’s suggestion after imported cases from out-of-province workers might not be feasible
Newfoundland and Labrador has seen 54 cases of COVID-19 between September and Tuesday’s reporting, and a significant percentage have been outside workers coming back to the province from Alberta, as well as Ontario and Manitoba.
With that in mind, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Janice Fitzgerald has announced the province is changing its testing regimen for rotational workers to add two more days of isolation before testing. A worker must now receive a negative test after seven days of isolation, instead of five, effective on Wednesday.
Premier Andrew Furey is calling on companies in places like Alberta to consider changing shifts to 30 days on, 30 days off to allow workers more time with their families when they return home.
But a worker from a northern Alberta oilsands facility who spoke with CBC News on condition of anonymity said they don’t expect Furey’s request will get much consideration from companies who use rotational workers. Much of the workforce consists of people who live in Western Canada and won’t want to work for a month straight without commuting the relatively short distance home, they say, while companies are also structuring schedules around cohorts of workers to reduce the number of overall contacts for each person.
Numbers have declined a bit in recent years, but one study pegged Newfoundland and Labrador’s workforce between 2002 to 2016 in Alberta as averaging about 8,000 people. N.L. workers have occasionally faced criticism in Alberta for making large wages and spending the money at home, but now they’re facing scrutiny from their neighbours for working away from home and coming back in a time when a virus can easily spread.
The worker CBC spoke with admits to some trepidation about returning to Newfoundland and Labrador after “reading nasty comments online” about rotational workers.
As COVID-19 cases soar and regions lock down, Tam has a blunt message about holiday planning
Canada set a daily record in coronavirus cases on Monday and nearly all parts of the country have been affected by restrictions on movement and commerce, tighter rules that the chief public health officer says are a necessary evil right now.
“The longer you wait to increase the measures, the longer it would take to come out of the restrictions,” Dr. Theresa Tam told The National co-host Andrew Chang.
Tam says that over the past several months, provincial and territorial medical officers of health tried hard to achieve a balance where they could keep up with COVID-19 testing and contact tracing while keeping society open.
“It’s just something that people have never tried in the history of the last hundred years,” she said. “They were trying really hard to minimize impact on the economic side, on schools, on work…. It’s just not an easy thing to do.”
Tam is blunt when it comes to the upcoming holiday season: No large gatherings. Keep it small. Keep it within your own household.
“Christmas is not going to be having any kind of large group interactions,” she said. “Even with family, you’ve got to really think twice. Avoid non-essential travel. Keep to your current household contacts as much as possible.”
Watch the interview with Dr. Tam
After 2 hurricanes in Honduras, officials there fear COVID-19 will spread
In the wake of Hurricane Eta and Hurricane Iota, thousands of people are packing into Honduran shelters for refuge, raising concerns about the spread of COVID-19.
“In a way … these past two hurricanes have completely made us forget about COVID-19. Of course, COVID hasn’t forgotten us,” Luis Luna, a pastor at the Victory Church of God in the city of Villanueva, tells As It Happens host Carol Off. “The virus is still lingering there.”
The hurricanes earlier this month, which struck less than two weeks apart, brought heavy rains, flooding and landslides. An accurate death toll won’t be known until waters recede, but so far dozens are believed to have been killed.
Prior to their arrival, Honduras had already logged more than 100,000 cases of COVID-19, and nearly 2,900 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The pandemic is also expected to compound recovery efforts from another standpoint. While international aid has been forthcoming in the past when the country of 4.2 million has been devastated by weather events, countries who could pitch in are preoccupied with their own COVID-19 battles.
Listen to the As It Happens interview
Stay informed with the latest COVID-19 data.
THE SCIENCE
Moderna’s Canadian co-founder marvels at how far mRNA research has come
Derrick Rossi, the Canadian stem cell biologist who co-founded American biotech company Moderna, recognized while doing research in 2008 the potential of modified messenger RNA (mRNA), which can prompt the body to quickly produce proteins.
“No matter what protein one needed expressed, we could build a modified mRNA construct for it relatively quickly — within a week, a week and a half — and have expression of that protein in living cells shortly thereafter,” he explained recently to Ian Hanomansing of CBC’s Cross-Country Checkup.
Rossi, who retains stock in Moderna but is no longer involved with the company, says back then he didn’t foresee its potential use for vaccines, and that there wasn’t a viable business model for concentrating on that application.
But now both Moderna and Pfizer have reported encouraging results in clinical trials for their COVID-19 vaccines that use messenger RNA. In the case of a coronavirus vaccine, a certain strand of modified mRNA is injected and instructs the body to create what are called spike proteins that activate the immune system to build protective antibodies against the virus.
“Here we are 12 years later, and the pandemic has really shown that the technology is actually a perfect application for something that can be developed very, very quickly and put it into patients and go through a number of clinical trials to eventually get regulatory approval,” said Rossi, now an associate professor at Harvard University.
Rossi also says Canadian should feel pretty confident in such vaccines, as mRNA is a molecule that is naturally occurring in the human body. When injected, mRNA works to produce the desired protein and then “degrades pretty quickly.”
AND FINALLY…
Parks Canada pushes back opening of camping reservation system to April 2021
Parks Canada has announced it will push back the opening of its popular online parks reservation system from January to April in 2021, a plan designed to both allow for fewer cancellations because of changed plans, as well as to allow people to plan their vacations closer to the time they will travel.
COVID-19 safety is also a factor. Parks Canada says the agency is working closely with Indigenous partners and communities to ensure safe numbers in the parks, as well as safe tourism and camping practices.
The online reservation system services 38 national parks and historic sites, including popular Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper, Alta., and is often overwhelmed with reservations on opening days.
Next year, the opening dates are staggered from coast to coast, with B.C. opening the reservation system first on April 6, followed by Alberta on April 9 and working eastward to the final opening date of April 26 for Newfoundland and Labrador.
For winter or early spring camping, reservations are already open for dates up to the end of March 2021.
Read more about the changes here
Find out more about COVID-19
Still looking for more information on the pandemic? Read more about COVID-19’s impact on life in Canada, or reach out to us at covid@cbc.ca if you have any questions.
If you have symptoms of the illness caused by the coronavirus, here’s what to do in your part of the country.
For full coverage of how your province or territory is responding to COVID-19, visit your local CBC News site.
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