On Wednesday, April 21, Peace River South MLA Mike Bernier and Stikine MLA and Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Doug Donaldson hosted a virtual town hall with Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Raina Fumerton and Northern Health CEO Cathy Ulrich to answer questions about COVID-19.
One of the big questions is around lack of testing, especially in the North. Ulrich says this has been due to a number of issues, most of which are going away.
A month ago, it took nearly two weeks for a result from the north to get processed. “We have dropped the time significantly, it’s down to 20 hours now,” she says. “That is partially because there is increased capacity in the labs across the province, but also reduced travel time. Air transport out of Fort St John, Prince George and Terrace.” She says on average, it takes about 40 hours for a result from the north to return. And that will hopefully go down another factor in the next few weeks, as the University Hospital of Northern BC started to process tests in late April, with plans to put testing in place in Fort St. John and Terrace.
Will the tests for antibodies be ready soon? Dr Fumerton says it is being worked on. “It will probably be a couple months to be able to offer that more broadly,” she says. “We won’t need to test every resident of the province, but we are trying to have a representative selection of the population of BC.”
Fumerton says that she understands people are concerned about where cases are. Maybe even broken down to Northeast and Northwest. She recognizes that some jurisdictions (like Alberta) have different approaches. “In BC we have made the decision that we will be reporting cases at Health authority level, unless there is an outbreak,” she says. “At this point in time we have no outbreaks in the north. Or if there was an event when the follow up team wasn’t able to identify all the people.”
A good example of that would be the Dental Conference, she says, where it was announced publicly. But this is the path they are taking forward. She does say that the cases are spread out across the region, in both large and small communities. “One of the unintended consequences is we’ve seen stigma become an issue,” she says. “It’s important that we all assume there are cases in our community. We only know about lab confirmed cases. If we were to give numbers for each community, one argument is that people will take it seriously. But there could be communities without lab confirmed cases. Could that make people more laissez faire in those communities? We all need to all be taking the same measures, and assume that it is in our communities.”
While some people have been blaming the victims, there is also some concern about people who are not following recommendations for social isolation and other recommendations. “The proof is in the pudding that people in the north are taking this seriously,” says Fumerton. “We have done a good job in flattening the curve; focus on that instead of where people are unwilling or unable to comply with all the recommendations.”
While the Northern Health region has the lowest number of lab confirmed cases, this should not be a call to relax. “We are a vast region with many communities, but our numbers are lower than other health authorities,” says Ulrich. “And we have had less tests, partially because we have less people.”
She says there had been (as of April 21) 2687 people tested in the north, with 40 positive cases. (This has climbed to 42 as of April 27. Of those, 32 had recovered, while three were still in the hospital.)
“It’s fairly proportional, considering our population,” says Ulrich. “As we continue to expand testing, I think we’ll stay in proportional numbers to other health authorities.”
Fumerton says that with the nice weather, people are wanting to go outside. “I totally appreciate that,” she says. “There’s a lot of important health benefits to being outside and interacting with others. Being outside is good for physical and mental health. There have been no orders around social distancing outside. We don’t want to open any floodgates, and we want to ensure people are doing the best they can to hold to the recommendations. The orders around physical distancing is to limit contact with other people. If you do go outside, stay about 2 metres apart. That amount of distance is one of the most important ways to reduce the spread of germs between people.” This is, she points out about one picnic table’s width apart. Or one full grown moose.
“People by and large are being respectful and responsible. There has been no order to be on lock down in your home for weeks and months on end. There are recommendations around social distancing, respiratory cough etiquette, around hand washing. The expectation is that people aren’t going to be 100 percent compliant. There isn’t the expectation that people are shut into their homes all the time. I think we’re in alignment with the Federal and Provincial Government in what we’re doing here.”
Ulrich says that people need to think about what they do in their normal daily activity, and maybe one of the questions people need to ask themselves if they go for a drive is what they are doing and whether it is in alignment with the recommendations.
She says that a lot of people are scared to talk to their doctors at this time. This shouldn’t be the case. “One of the most important thing is if you need to see your family physician or nurse practitioner, you should do so,” she says. “It’s important that people access the health care they need. The same rules apply in a clinic around physical distancing, hand washing, coughing etiquette, mask for people with respiratory issues and cleaning protocols.
Fumerton says that doctors in the north have been doing a great job in making things work. “There are things that can be done virtually, and the things that have been set up have been impressive,” she says. “But sometimes a virtual visit isn’t appropriate. Maybe the doctor needs to listen to their heart or lungs. Doctors’ offices have done a great job balancing virtual and in person while keeping everybody safe.”
Fumerton reminds people this is a new virus. “We are learning about it every day,” she says. This makes it hard to know what is normal and what is not. “here are different definitions of an community outbreak,” she says. “One of these is when see the number of people infected with the disease above the expected rate. But we don’t have that for this. It’s not mumps or measles or rubella which we have decades of information for. We’ve been using the term outbreak to describe this happening in an enclosed space, like a long term care facility. We’ve been very conservative in what we call an outbreak. Other settings would be places like correctional centres or shelters. The term is helpful in that closed setting, because we can implement methods to contain and control. In a community, it’s a bit of a different scenario. Everyone is susceptible, unless you’ve already been infected, so we are not declaring community outbreaks, per se.”
And does Northern Health have enough PPE? For now, says Ulrich. “PPE is a very vulnerable supply chain, and it is something we are monitoring closely. We are watching very closely, and know what the alternatives are in case we do run out.”
