Canada finally has a ‘ticket out of the pandemic’, a year after the virus shut down the country

A year after COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic, an infectious disease expert in Ontario has a brighter outlook for the future as vaccines continue to be cleared and distributed.

“I think overall we have our ticket out of the pandemic,” infectious disease specialist Dr Sumon Chakrabarti said. Yahoo Canada. “It is now in our hands and it is now in our arms, so to speak.”

“In the fall, although we see an increase in the number of cases, we have protection against death and hospitalization. So we’re not going to constantly have this fear of foreclosure that affects us … We’re almost there and we should have a positive view of what’s going to happen in the coming months. “

A lesson on COVID-19 Canada cannot forget

Being on the front line of this pandemic for a year, Dr Chakrabarti identified that COVID-19 has revealed the importance of a clear message, especially when knowledge changes. Dr Chakrabarti said a clear message is one aspect of the pandemic response that has not always been up to par, especially in Ontario.

“There’s been a lot of mixed posts, a lot of scare-mongering, a lot of brainstorming, so I think if we do more positive posts, get to the root of the problem and blame people less, I think it does. could have been much more useful, ”he explained.

“I think in the future I hope we don’t have another pandemic, but if we do, it would be very important to have this type of learning to be able to both deal with the pandemic of ‘from a medical point of view, but also get good and effective messages to the public. “

Regarding our message on the pandemic, Dr Chakrabarti would give this aspect of the response to COVID-19 about five out of ten hours.

“What I thought was the problem was that there were a lot of messages based on blame, a lot of accountability on the person,” he said.

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“Of course, it was incumbent on us to try to keep our risk as low as possible, by decreasing our contacts, but when things weren’t going well there was a lot of telling people to stay home, to stay. at home, to stay at home, where now, in retrospect, there are many other issues that have not been addressed, such as transmission in the workplace, the chain of transmission from the workplace to the home, long-term care, and those are things that wouldn’t have been affected by the lockdown or telling people to stay home. “

While Dr. Chakrabarti certainly understands Ontario’s response better, he indicated that B.C.’s COVID-19 response, particularly the messaging style of Dr. Bonnie Henry, Provincial Health Administrator, was ” much better ”.

“I’m not saying things were perfect in BC either, but I think those are the types of things that are important,” he said.

“In the future, if we ever have a pandemic or even some type of epidemic across the country again, it’s important for us to really focus on the areas to protect first and vulnerable areas such as care. long-term, meeting places of life, and also essential workplaces. These are the areas we really, really need to focus on and better protect. “

From a medical standpoint, Dr Chakrabarti would give the pandemic response about seven out of ten.

“What happened in long-term care was a tragedy and it still happens [but] it was something that was completely preventable, ”he said.

“There were some aspects, I think, that were done right, … getting our PPE levels, getting infection control in hospitals, being able to roll out new treatments, I think it was all. good enough.”

The most difficult period of the COVID-19 pandemic

Thinking back to last year, Dr Chakrabarti identified that the very beginning was the most difficult time for him, when cases of COVID-19 were detected and it was not yet fully known how it would affect them. people in Ontario and around the world. Canada.

“It was, I think, pretty scary because people at the same time were quite nervous, not really listening to recommendations, wanting to do a lot more than we were recommending,” he said. “It was very difficult, but once we got over that bump, not to say that we got complacent, we kind of figured out what it was about.

“It was very helpful, people’s expectations were met, people were a lot less nervous and things got a lot easier, even when something like a second wave fell.”

Moving forward, Dr Chakrabarti explained that thinking about COVID-19 vaccines to prevent serious illness is the way to look to the future, not necessarily to eradicate COVID-19.

“One thing with respiratory viruses, … these are viruses that you cannot eradicate, it is natural that they circulate in the environment, and in temperate climates like ours, we tend to see them in winter and I expect that to happen with COVID-19 as well, ”he explained.

“The vaccination, what it does is two things,… preventing serious illness, death and being hospitalized and potentially being put on a ventilator, and that helps us reduce transmission through the population. So when you put these two things together, our goal is not to get rid of it, we can never get rid of it, but to make it nothing serious. “