As Canada faces a rising number of coronavirus cases, public health experts and the public alike are dealing with confusion and uncertainty as the situation changes daily. Here are some answers — and key questions experts are still working on.
With a deluge of news about cancelled events together with conflicting information about what to do — or not do — the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic is causing confusion, uncertainty and worry among many Canadians.
Health workers themselves are trying to navigate a virus they’ve never seen before and deal with constantly evolving information too, said Dr. Allison McGeer, a microbiologist and infectious disease expert at Sinai Health in Toronto, and a researcher funded by the federal government to study how the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 spreads.
“The problem is that we’re in this really unstable phase of the pandemic where new cases are appearing, public health officials are uncertain about what the right interventions are to try to slow this down and spread this out so that we can manage health care,” McGeer told Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC health podcast The Dose.
“Things are changing so quickly [that] … the right decision today and the right decision tomorrow might be two different things.”
At this moment, though, here are the answers McGeer and other health experts have for some of the top questions on people’s minds:
It’s March Break next week. Should Canadians travel?
Canadians should certainly avoid going to countries where there is a lot of coronavirus activity, McGeer said. Check Health Canada’s travel notices website.
As of Thursday, China, Iran, Italy, South Korea and Japan were listed as either places not to go at all or requiring special precautions. There were also lower levels of caution listed for several other countries, including France, Spain, Germany and Singapore.
What about travel within Canada?
“We still don’t have much community transmission in Canada,” McGeer said, so the risk of getting COVID-19 is still relatively low. She doesn’t think people need to worry too much about travelling within Canada right now — but that may change as the case numbers rise.
What about travel to the U.S.?
Travel to the U.S. is currently “unpredictable,” McGeer said.
“They still aren’t doing much testing, so it is hard to tell what is going on,” she said.
Health Canada has not issued any advisories against travel to the U.S.
But in British Columbia, provincial medical officer Dr. Bonnie Henry took a tougher stance on Thursday evening, “strongly advising” people not to travel anywhere outside Canada — including the U.S.
Any B.C. resident who does travel outside Canada should stay home from work or school for 14 days upon their return, she said.
The current risk of an individual becoming infected in the U.S. is probably less than one per cent, McGeer said.
But at a time when health authorities are trying to slow the rise of coronavirus in Canada, people bringing back any new infections during a peak travel period is always a worry.
If 50,000 people travel for March Break to the U.S. and 0.5 per cent of them become infected, that would add up to 250 new cases in Canada, McGeer said.
Dr. Allison McGeer, one of Canada’s top infectious disease specialists, joins host Dr. Brian Goldman to give you the most up-to-date information on the new coronavirus, a reality check on travel bans and quarantines and what you can do to protect yourself and the most vulnerable people around you. 30:54
Because the COVID-19 situation is changing daily, people also need to think beyond the actual risk of infection — because no matter where you travel, there’s still always a chance you could be told to go into quarantine as a precaution, whether by another country’s government or by your employer upon your return, McGeer said.
“You have to think to yourself: If I got there and got quarantined, how bad would that be? If I came back and somebody said, ‘We don’t want you at work for 14 days,’ how bad would that be? And then make your decision on travel based on that.”
What does the scientific evidence say about travel bans and quarantines?
The evidence says that travel bans and quarantines won’t stop the disease, but they can delay it, McGeer said.
The harsh quarantine in China, where the new coronavirus was first detected and became an epidemic, bought much of the rest of the world, including Canada, about three weeks to a month to prepare for the virus’s arrival, she said.
“That month is very valuable,” she said, but it also came at a “tremendous cost to the people in quarantine in China.”
That’s why decisions about whether to enact quarantines and travel bans are difficult to make.
“How much economic loss — and health losses