Monday August 31, 2020 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., Editor | Island Social Trends
With an average of 98 cases per day over the last three days (Friday to Monday, August 27 to 31), the heat is on. We’re on the cusp of a second wave of COVID-19 say health officials. It’s time to prepare.
The preparation is — in a sense — much easier than in March when we all had to learn about physical distancing, how hard it is not to touch your face, how interruptive it can be to stop and clean your hands frequently, how time consuming it is to clean surfaces, tricks and ways of putting on and taking off face masks, and keeping track of everywhere you’ve been (just in case).
There was also the sudden learning curve of a new much-at-home lifestyle. How to buy groceries online or find someone who could shop or deliver for you. How well (or not) you were set up for being employed or doing business from home.
Whether — as parents — your kids could continue with learning the curriculum at home, and whether you were up to the task of being their new stand-in teacher. Most of us got acquainted with Zoom calls for the first time. Now we keep a mask by the door, and latex gloves in our bag. It’s COVID-time!
COVID on top of flu season:
Now for the second wave — an expected overlay of COVID transmision and infections on top of the annual fall/winter flu season — we have the physical actions of COVID management well in hand. What might be harder to bear this time is the retreat back into relative isolation and those small ‘bubbles’ (as loving as they may be), that keep us separated from the normal flow of a social community life.
If we need a reminder of how bad it could get, the COVID-19 case number increase announced today by Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix would be a good place to start. Or noting how a summer of social fun led to COVID-19 transmission in people of all ages. Or remembering some of the tales we’re starting to hear documented about people who remain with lingering malaise or worse for weeks and months.
These aren’t just numbers and sad tales. They indicate the power of this virus to impact the ability to earn a living, to spend time with family and friends, to maintain good health for life going forward.
Note that 224 people died of flu across Canada in the 2018-2019 influenza season. That number pales in comparison to the current COVID cross-Canada death tally of 9,126 in just eight months.
Most adults and chidren weather the flu well, so it’s something most of us probably hadn’t paid attention to before. But add COVID on top of flu infections and you’ve got confusion when symptoms begin to appear. Is it flu, it is just the common cold, or is it COVID?
The coming specter of COVID cases and deaths (laid on top of other respiratory illnesses) is sobering, and, well it should be. Diagnosis becomes more complex (though Dr Henry says testing will cover for all respiratory illnesses as well as COVID). And as public health asks all of to stay home from work or school with any symptoms or feeling unwell at all, that potentially fells a chunk of the population at some point.
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, the 2018-19 influenza season in Canada was longer than the previous five seasons and was characterized by two waves of influenza A activity and very little influenza B circulation. The national season started in week 43 (October 21-27, 2018), peaked in week 52 (December 23-29, 2018) and ended in week 21 (May 19-25, 2019).
And just to blur the lines even more, so far symptoms of COVID-19 appear to be mild in children but when it comes to flu children under age five can have a rough go of it. So when symptoms arise in children this fall and winter, will that be considered flu or a new progression of COVID (as children, so far, are thought to acquire mild infections of COVID, if at all).
In other words, with COVID on top of a scenario such as that, we’re in for a long haul.
Back to school complexities:
Case counts have been robust in most of July and August, pushing daily case counts past what was seen in March and April at the start of the pandemic. As people gather in larger numbers in schools starting next week, the mix of air from warm bodies in closed spaces is for many people still a matter of concern.
In some school districts — such as SD62 on the west shore of Vancouver Island — they are coming right out with options for in-class, distance learning, remote/in-class hybrid, and home-schooling. Parents have less than 48 hours to indicate their preference. The pressure is on. It’s just one more example of social and organizational adaptation in response to the insistence virus.
A virus like no other:
This virus is of a kind all its own. It did not fade in warm summer weather the way more cold or flu viruses do. It has a stealth pattern, taking advantage of any situation where people choose proximity over distance.
The social and mental health impacts of trying to avoid the COVID-19 virus are in many ways as harmful as the physical illness itself (budgets and services to support mental wellness have been stepped up in BC during the pandemic and there’s every indication that effort will continue).
If there was ever a virus designed to try and break the backs of the economy, the spirit of the people, and the bodies of the weak, COVID-19 would be one very good example. It almost carries an intelligence to overwhelm. We must think of it that way, or find ourselves at a disadvantage.
The August 31 BC COVID report:
Today there were 294 new test-positive cases of COVID-19 announced (3 are epi-linked), covering a three-day period (August 27-28, August 28-29, and August 30-31): 86, 107 and 101, for a total of 5,790 confirmed COVID infections in BC.
Over a thousand people (1,107) are dealing with an active COVID-19 infection at home, now at the end of summer. And another 2,723 are under the watchful eye of public health on a daily basis for having been identified as exposed to the virus.
Sick enough to be in hospital — that count is 28. And of those, COVID-19 has slammed 10 of them hard enough to put them into intensive care (which often means being put into an induced coma so that a ventilator can enable their breathing).
There were four more deaths from COVID-19 over the weekend. Three of those were in long term care. But one was not… and that’s relatively new (the age of that person was not announced). The death total in BC is now 208. Of those, 13 occurred in August, which today Minister Dix said was a relatively low number compared to death tallies of 41 in Alberta and 84 in Quebec as reported yesterday for the month of August.
In BC, 4,466 people who have tested COVID-positive since the beginning of the pandemic have recovered. BC cases are tracked from January 1, 2020 forward.
COVID-19 age distribution in BC:
Public health is working hard. In three days over this past week, 13,461 COVID-19 tests were administered.
Spread of COVID is across all age groups. At August 31 in BC this was the breakdown of 5,790 cases:
- Under age 10: 142
- Age 10-19: 287
- Age 20-29: 1,252
- Age 30-39: 1,119
- Age 40-49: 805
- Age 50-59: 805
- Age 60-69: 510
- Age 70-79: 346
- Age 80-89: 281
- Age 90+: 165
- Unknown: 78
Minister’s advice:
Heading into the fall flu season with a COVID second wave “requires us to dig in”. said Minister Dix. He outlined the importance of the health care system being able to continue with surgeries, of visitors being able to access loved ones in long term care, and “our hopeful success of children back to school”.
He said all of that depends on collective efforts together. “Everybody has to be all in” is now a trademark Dixism.
Doctor’s advice:
“We’ve learned that we’re going to be living with this virus for a while,” said Dr Henry today in her calm, purposeful manner that we’ve all come to know. She broadened her comments beyond the disease statistics, saying that “contact in the community is very important — we need to go to work and school.” It’s about balance.
“It depends on our own family and risk,” the PHO said. Every additional person grows the risk in a logarithmic fashion. One to one is easy to understand and deal with. Expand that to two friends and then the chance of exposure increases to six.
We’ve had a relative period of quiet during the summer, Dr Henry claimed. But she added that “when people are getting together, close, face to face, talking, laughing, those are the environmens were this virus passes quickly”.
She itemized funerals, marriages and engagements as situations were COVID has spread in BC this summer. “Step back and look at that. Have a personal balance. It’s not a simple answer.”
And of course there was the be-well wish by way of her stellar mantra, that everyone should strive “to be kind, to be calm, and to be safe”.
