New Brunswick’s decision to focus only on vaccination against COVID-19 in the face of rising COVID cases fueled by Omicron’s highly transmissible BA.5 and BA.4 subvariants is a “poor strategy,” according to an infection control epidemiologist.
It’s one that Colin Furness predicts will fail and put children under five who are currently unvaccinated at greater risk.
“Every government in the world that has relied on one way to control this has failed,” said Furness, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. “One strategy is not enough.”
As COVID cases rise and the coronavirus becomes more prevalent in the community, infants and preschoolers will face an increased risk of infection, he said.
“So you have a lot of childhood diseases that would be completely avoidable if we worked to reduce the prevalence,” he said.
Furness was responding to comments earlier this week from the province’s chief medical officer of health, who said a return to mandatory masking or other protective restrictions was not being considered.
“At this point … we’re not going to have that conversation,” Dr. Jennifer Russell told CBC News.
“The message right now is about vaccination because that’s what will reduce people’s risk of severe outcomes and needing hospitalisation.”
Dr. Jennifer Russell, New Brunswick’s chief health officer, urged people to get whatever booster they’re eligible for, while those with risk factors should consider taking additional preventative measures, such as masking, physical distancing and hand washing. (Ed Hunter/CBC)
On Tuesday, the province announced it is now offering a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to anyone 18 and older, as long as it’s been five months since their last dose.
The decision to lower the age limit from 50 comes as four more New Brunswickers have been killed by COVID in the past week, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has nearly doubled to 95, seven of whom are in intensive care, and almost 2,500 new infections were reported, data released on Tuesday showed.
Furness agrees with expanding eligibility for second boosters, but is disappointed by the shift in public messaging, urging those particularly at risk to get the extra dose, rather than encouraging everyone to get the shot to help protect those , who cannot.
After more than two years of the pandemic, Furness called it a “gigantic mistake” not to recognize that a “multimodal strategy” was needed.
Ontario is taking a similar approach, “which is we’re not going to do anything. We’re just going to sit and watch and hope it doesn’t get too bad, even though we know healthcare is really tight. And we’re going to suggest that vaccination might be a good thing,” according to Furness. “And it’s not adequate.”
Masks politicized
Still, Furness isn’t surprised that New Brunswick isn’t considering mandatory masking. Mask mandates have become a political decision, he said.
“And there doesn’t seem to be any political appetite anywhere to introduce that kind of protection or reintroduce that kind of protection.”
This too, he claims, is a mistake.
One of the problems, Furness said, is that “there’s so much public confusion and changing science around masks that there’s a lot of room for people to say, ‘Oh, masks don’t work.’
Also, although the federal government and many states have recognized that COVID is airborne, he is not aware of any provinces that have.
“That’s a problem because if you haven’t recognized it, then you’re not really educating the population that they actually need to wear respirators” to protect themselves from an airborne pathogen.
Provinces need to recognize that COVID-19 is airborne and educate people about the use of respirators, Furness said. (Nicholas Pfossi/Reuters)
“So to me, it’s a little wrong to limit the conversation to whether we need mask mandates or not, because if we’re going to impose the wrong kind of masks or impose a rule without explaining to people how these things work and why, well, we’re going to get [many] people don’t understand, they don’t understand, pointing out that crappy masks don’t work and therefore masks don’t work,” he said.
“You’re increasing the cacophony, the confusion, the resistance, and you’re also missing a real opportunity for people to actually stay safe.”
“So it’s not just about, should we be mandating masks? We must provide respirators. We need to educate people about them. And that’s what doesn’t happen. And that, I think, is really short-sighted.”
With the knowledge of the mask, mask mandates may not be necessary, Furness suggested.
The behavioral scientist judges
People will wear masks if they know of a good reason to do so, according to Simon Bacon, a behavioral scientist at Concordia University in Montreal.
Not surprisingly, many people are not wearing masks despite the resurgence of COVID-19, he said.
By removing the mandates and not providing more information about the risks and benefits, the government sent the message that masking is not important and everything is fine.
“You know, masks are very politicized. And, you know, we’ve heard a lot of political rhetoric around masks. So, you know, they come with a degree of baggage at this point,” Bacon said.
Simon Bacon, a professor of behavioral medicine at Concordia University who studies how people respond to public health policy, said governments should empower people to make decisions by providing more information about risks. (Concordia University)
“So people have to assess their own personal risk. They must assess the risk they are exposing other people with whom they interact.
“Someone can be young, healthy and vaccinated and willing to roll the dice on whether or not they will get COVID. But he needs to think about who he’s communicating with. What would be the consequences if he got COVID? Who would they hand it over to?
“You might not end up in the hospital, but a lot of people are kind of knocked out for a week. Well, we’re almost there [in] the holiday season. Anyone want to feel, you know, sluggish and have symptoms and think about going on vacation? Probably not.”
As the number of cases rises, Bacon expects more people to start wearing masks again and to be more careful about hand washing and social distancing. That happened during peaks earlier in the pandemic, he noted.
Add Comment