Tag: #Covid19

All Ontarians Should Hope New Health Minister Sylvia Jones Succeeds

New Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones

Sylvia Jones is now Ontario’s Minister of Health, the largest, most volatile ministry in government. The Ontario Medical Association’s (OMA) correctly tweeted about this:

My first thought when I saw this was a somewhat flippant “should have sent her condolences instead.” Minister Jones has a whole lot of headaches going forward. To succeed, she pretty well needs to be perfect. A cursory glance at the issues she faces is mind boggling.

Should she support further lifting of Covid-19 restrictions? This will make some doctors mad. Should she instead support re-introducing mask mandates and tightening of Covid-19 policies? This will make other doctors angry. Worse, both sides have credible experts, so the whole “listen to the experts”can’t apply when the experts themselves are saying different things.

There is a Health Human Resources crisis unfolding in Ontario (and Canada). Hospital ERs are being closed due to staffing crises and there does not seem to be a quick solution. As more health care workers plan on retiring or leaving the profession early, finding replacements is going to be exceptionally challenging.

The Long Term Care (LTC) situation is equally dire. Wait times for LTC beds in Ontario are skyrocketing. In 2017 I wrote about how we needed 26,000 hospital beds right away, and another 50,000 by 2023. More beds are being built by the Ford government, which is great, but they will take time to arrive.

A quick solution to ease the burden would be to allow older homes who had ward beds in their facilities, open them up again. Rules were changed under covid to no longer allow 4 residents per room. However, if you do that, people will scream you are committing gerontocide. (This is despite the fact that just about all residents in nursing homes have got four covid shots now).

Need more? (As if that wasn’t enough). Over 20 million medical procedures were delayed due to the pandemic. Many of these procedures are early detection screening tests for cancer (sooner you catch, the sooner you cure and, cold-heartedly, the less cost to the health care system).

How about wait times? Wait times for medically necessary procedures continues to rise. MOH bureaucrats like to refer to these as “elective” procedures. But the reality is that if you are suffering from knee pain every day, and have to wait a year to get a knee replacement, it’s not elective, it’s necessary.

All of which makes me realize just how courageous Minister Jones is to take on the Health Portfolio. Allah/God/Yahweh/(insert deity of your choice) knows I wouldn’t want the job. But if I may, I would suggest the Minister should focus on a few things in the first year, as even improvements in a couple of areas will have benefits across the health system.

A word of caution first. She should take what bureaucrats tell her with a grain of salt. There were a few times when I was on the OMA Board when it became obvious that the MOH Bureaucrats had NOT fully informed then Health Minister Christine Elliot about some issues around physicians that caused needless kerfuffles. The bureaucracy has a certain way of thinking that is rigid, ideological and focussed on self perpetuation as opposed to making meaningful change.

I don’t always agree with columnist Brian Lilley of PostMedia, but he hit the nail on the head when he wrote:

“…Ford and his team shouldn’t rely on the Ministry of Health for solutions. These are the people who got us into this mess and who have been failing upward for years..”

and

“..Ford has a real opportunity to change health-care delivery, to speed up access to services, to do away with wait lists and all without changing the single-payer system that Canadians rely on..”

The last comment lines up nicely with the first part of the OMA’s Prescription for Ontario, where they recommend developing outpatient surgical clinics to move simple operations out of hospitals and free up beds. The bureaucracy will oppose it because they are incapable of new ways of thinking and are beholden to hospitals. But at least the Minister will have the support of Ontario’s doctors to work through some of the blowback (there’s always blowback to anything new).

The other easy win is to develop a digitally connected team of health care providers for each patient (also an OMA recommendation). We have something similar in the Georgian Bay Region for the past 12 years and I cannot stress how much it has improved patient care. If I have a patient in need of increased home care, all I have to do is message the home care co-ordinator directly from their chart and ask for help, and they usually respond within 24 hours among other benefits.

This also ties in with a project I was pushing hard for during my term on the OMA Board that got sidetracked mostly by the pandemic but also with some political issues around OntarioMD. I remain convinced that had that project gone forward there would be people alive today that aren’t because of the improved communication it would have provided. But at least preliminary work on it has been done, and with a nudge from the Health Minister this could potentially be restarted to give patients a digitally connected health care team.

NB- this is another area where the Digital Health Team at the Ministry of Health is going in the wrong direction. Their plans are (in my opinion) needlessly complex and won’t result in the kind of robust digital health infrastructure that is absolutely essential to a high performing health care system.

In short, Minister Jones has a monumental task ahead of her. Someone will will criticize her no matter what choices she makes (it’s no secret that health care is referred to as the third rail of politics). If however, she can set, say, three attainable goals in her first year (my suggestions would be open LTC beds, start building outpatient surgery clinics and get the digital infrastructure done), while keeping the bureaucrats in check, then real progress can be made in improving the health system.

All Ontarians, regardless of political stripe, should hope she succeeds. Our crumbling health system depends on it.

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Covid is Not Over – and It Won’t EVER Be

As provinces across Canada begin to lift restrictions from the Covid pandemic, there is a plethora of opinions raging about this. Some physicians feel the restrictions are being lifted too slowly. Others feel that it is just right. In Ontario at least, the most outspoken group are the physicians who demand ongoing restrictions. They have taken to using #Covidisnotover on Twitter.

Obviously, when dealing with a once in a century pandemic that has truly decimated patients and health care workers alike, there are still going to be unknowns going forward. But personally speaking, I think we have to realize a couple of things. First, Covid is not over. Second, and most importantly, it never will be.

Is the flu over? Is HIV over? Heck, are measles and RSV over? The answer to all of those is no. The viruses are still around, they are still infecting people and are mutating all the time (that’s why we need an annual flu shot).

There are always a certain amount of these viruses in the ecosystem. Why would Covid be any different? We are not going to completely eradicate Covid.

Given this – the question becomes, what do we do as a society?

One option, and certainly one that is promoted by the #covidisnotover types, is to continue ongoing restrictions, for much longer. Be it mask mandates, enforced vaccine passports, or continued limits on indoor capacity, the message from them seems to be to keep imposing restrictions for……well, I couldn’t really find consensus on an end date.

The most common argument for continuing restrictions (in Ontario anyway) is the continued positive case load. There are more positive cases than ever before, so why should we stop restrictions now?

Well, the short version is that while it is absolutely true that our case load is higher now than in, say October of 2020, many other factors have changed. In October of 2020, there were no vaccines. There were no oral medications that could help treat those who were infected. Guidance on the fact that Covid is airborne was still (shockingly) lacking.

In comparison, in March of 2022 over 90% of the adult population of Ontario has two covid vaccines, and are well on the way to their third. Evidence is clear that the vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing serious complications of Covid. There is now a strong emphasis on good ventilation as a way to reduce the Covid burden. The government is providing funding for Hepa filters in schools and child care settings. A protocol for rolling out the new oral medications exists, and, like all things, supply of the medications will increase with time.

So to compare just case numbers from October 2020 to March 2022, quite frankly is just comparing apples to oranges. We need to take all these other factors into account.

The other common argument is essentially “Look at Denmark!“. Pro restriction types point to the fact that Denmark lifted all Covid restrictions on February 1st, 2022, and now seems to have an exploding number of cases and mortality. Graphs like the one below are designed to shock people into thinking there is a catastrophe in Denmark:

But the graph doesn’t tell the whole story, and in fact a much more nuanced approach requiring a deep dive into the data is needed. I was going to try but I can’t do a better job of it than Michael Petersen did in his twitter thread:

The short version is that because so many people have Covid now, we need to do a better job of determining who died because of a covid infection (usually a covid pneumonia) vs who died of other causes, but incidentally happened to have Covid at the same time. A better graph showing the Denmark situation (taken from Petersen’s thread) taking this into account is here:

Before people start jumping all over this, let me also point out that I am acutely aware that there is a significant spike in deaths in Denmark recently, even if not specifically caused by Covid. We clearly need to do a deeper dive into why there were excess deaths. But part of that deeper dive must include whether deaths were caused by the restrictions themselves (delayed care, depression and mental health issues leading to people just giving up etc). In essence, is the cure (restrictions) causing more harm than the disease (Covid)?

Look, lockdowns and restrictions were initially necessary. There is good evidence that they helped to blunt the course of Covid. But there is also evidence that they have harmed society as well. The economic impacts with record government deficits that will tax our great grand children are well known. However, there are also other health care impacts.

In Ontario, we have a back log of 20 million health care services, leaving many patients feeling forgotten. There are consequences to delayed care and I have seen that in my own practice, and expect to see much more in the coming year. Yes, those consequences sadly will include deaths.

All of this is before we even consider the collateral damage done to mental health especially in our pediatric population. As Dr. Jetelina points out in her excellent sub stack, there has been a world wide increase in paediatric mental health issues. A 24-31% rise in children presenting with mental health issues and a shocking 69-133% (depending on age group) increase in children presenting with suicidal thoughts to Emergency Departments.

What does all this mean?

My personal feeling is that while we cannot ignore Covid (it’s a bad disease) and we need to continue to encourage vaccinations (they work), we need to start looking at the health care system as a whole. Should we mask in high risk areas? Sure. But should we continue to isolate people socially and restrict interactions in a lower risk population, when that clearly causes other harms? I would argue no.

We have been making decisions for a long time based on Covid numbers alone. There are other illnesses and disease that are out there, many of which have been worsened by the restrictions Covid has forced on us. We need to start basing our health care decisions on what’s best for overall population health, not just Covid.

Governments Should Listen to the Experts and Ease Covid Restrictions

It’s time.

For the past two years, the majority of Canadians have done their part to help combat the greatest health care crisis in a generation. We’ve dutifully worn masks, social distanced, gotten vaccinated and done our part to help protect others.

When the pandemic began (has it been two years already?), very little was known about Covid19 and still less was known about how to treat it. Public Health leaders did their best to provide guidance in an ever changing environment. They got some stuff wrong (remember how we were all initially told not to wear masks ?). But they got more stuff right (the lockdowns did help slow the spread of Covid19).

We all paid a terrible price to fight Covid. Job losses. Economic uncertainty. Decreased social interaction. Mental health impacts on ourselves and most troublingly our children. Delayed medical procedures. The list could go on forever.

Through it all however, was the hope that at some point the pandemic would either end, or change to a more manageable form and we could start to live more normal, if not completely normal lives. I submit that time has come.

In Ontario, we have almost 90% of residents over age 12 who have had two covid vaccines. This would be the number we were told was necessary to achieve herd immunity. I understand that most people need three shots. But the reality is that with Covid being a seasonal virus that seems to mutate regularly, we may need annual booster shots. Surely we won’t keep restrictions forever because we will likely need vaccines forever.

Additionally, we now have new promising medications to treat covid infections. An oral medication that is 90% effective in reducing hospitalizations has been approved by Health Canada, and early distribution to those at highest risk has already begun. I appreciate we need to ramp up production of the medication, and have more of it in stock, but at least we have viable treatment options.

It’s not just this old country doctor saying we need to ease restrictions more. Last week, Ontario’s Chief Medical officer of health himself stated that we needed to re-assess the proof of vaccination process. Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam admitted that we needed to get back to some normalcy. Despite the fact that British Columbia had some of the highest Covid related death tolls with the Omicron wave, even their provincial Health Officer, the excellent Dr. Bonnie Henry, signalled that restrictions would be easing.

I would note that throughout the pandemic, there have been calls for all of us to “listen to the experts” and follow their guidance. Well, they are all signalling that it’s time to change the approach and that it’s time to start lifting restrictions.

To be clear, the restrictions should not be lifted all at once. There should be a stepwise approach to lifting them, but that stepwise approach should be relatively rapid now.

The first thing to go should be the Vaccine Passports/Mandates. Before I go further let me be abundantly clear – I strongly urge everyone to get vaccinated (unless you are one of the one in 100,000 people who has a legitimate medical reason not to). The covid vaccines were incredibly effective against the alpha to delta variants of Covid. They are “just” really good against Omicron. However, with even Dr. Moore admitting that the vaccines will not stop transmission of the Omicron variant (but will drastically reduce your risk of getting critically ill from it) the passports/mandates make no sense anymore.

As an aside, my loyal readers (both of them) will remember that I wrote on July 30, 2021 that vaccine mandates were a bad idea and would “embolden hesitancy and create more fear and mistrust.” Look what’s happened. We now have our nation’s capital essentially under siege from a convoy of people who have been further emboldened by these coercive measures. Think there is enough trust there to come to an amicable solution? Particularly in light of Dr. Moore’s comments that transmissibility will not change if vaccinated?

This is in no way meant to support whatever the Ottawa convoy/protest/blockade is calling itself right now. They have frankly lost the moral high ground by not calling out the fringe few among them who are anti-semites, racists and just plain loons. They need to leave Ottawa and go home.

None of that, however, changes the fact that since you can get Omicron from a vaccinated person as well as from an unvaccinated person – there is no point to a vaccine passport. Get rid of it now.

Once that’s done, the next step should be to ensure our health care system goes back to full regular work and then some. We are already severely backlogged, and there is a whole lot of overtime needed to catch up on the delayed medical procedures.

Next (and in short order) capacity needs to be increased at restaurants/arenas/other indoor gatherings. We need to allow many of the businesses who have suffered terribly to start getting back on their feet.

The last step should be to remove mask mandates. Covid is airborne, and as such, masks provide a significant amount of protection. It will likely be a bit longer yet before we can say that Covid 19 is endemic (always circulating in the community at a stable level without fluctuating) as opposed to pandemic (essentially prevalent at a higher level with significant impacts on the health care system). So mask rules should be the last to go.

But make no mistake, the harms of all the other restrictive measures, whether on significantly delayed health care procedures, or enormous effects on government budgets and the economy now clearly outweigh the effects of continued restrictions.

It’s time to start lifting.

For those of you interested in such things I briefly spoke about Covid19 on CTV News and the link is below where I did mention vaccine passports had to go.

It’s Time to Open Up Nursing Home Capacity

Recently, I posted what I referred to as a controversial tweet about the need to open up nursing home beds that had been closed during the seemingly never ending Covid pandemic.

While there was not much “controversy” in twitter feed as a result of this, it did lead to some questions being asked during an interview I gave for CTV News.

While I certainly appreciate the professional nature of the reporter (the always adept Kraig Krause), the reality is that 30 second blurb on this topic, in an interview about all things COVID, can’t really do it justice. So let’s delve into this deeper.

It’s no secret that Ontario’s Nursing Homes were hit hard by the Covid pandemic. One nursing home in my region, Roberta Place in Barrie, was ravaged badly by the disease. I still grieve for all of the residents and families there, including those who survived as they likely continue to suffer some of the after effects of what transpired.

In the wake of these and other such stories, the Ontario government quite correctly limited the number of residents in ward beds at nursing homes. Many of Ontario’s nursing homes are very old buildings. The nursing home I’m honoured to be a medical director for has great ownership (private as it happens) and great staff, but the building itself if 52 years old and would not meet newer, more modern standards for nursing homes.

When my nursing home was built, having a ward bed (four residents to a room) was thought to be reasonable. Given that Covid is airborne (like most other respiratory illnesses!) the COVID19 Directive #3 (linked above) for nursing homes limited the number of residents to two per room. This made perfect medical sense at the time, and I certainly supported it then.

The reality however, is that health care is not limited to a single disease. We do have Covid of course, but we have a whole lot of other illnesses that we need to deal with. The Ontario Medical Association has estimated that a minimum of 16 million visits or procedures have been delayed as a result of the pandemic. We can’t keep delaying these. We need to address all the other health care issues that Ontarian’s have, and not just maintain sole focus on Covid.

Right now, I personally have two patients who are in hospital waiting for a nursing home bed. They are not acutely ill. They do not need aggressive medical treatment. They need a nursing home. But they can’t get one because of the massive shortage of nursing home beds. And while I strongly applaud the government for planning to build more beds, they won’t be here for 4-5 years.

At the nursing home I work at, normally 60 patients could be housed, but it’s now limited to 45 because of the rules implemented during the pandemic. I imagine it’s one of many nursing homes that has been limited. While opening up those closed beds (at all the homes) likely won’t be enough, it will help alleviate the stress on hospitals. This is particularly important given (as I write this) no one knows how bad the on coming Omicron wave will be.

But wait – are we not risking increased covid infections in the nursing homes by doing this? We would be increasing, for lack of a better phrase, population density in these homes. The answer is not as straightforward as one would think.

First we now know that three doses of the Covid19 vaccine provides the maximum amount of protection. Just about every resident of a nursing home has had three doses – as have staff. There will never, ever, ever be a vaccine (for any disease) that is 100% effective. But that fact that our most vulnerable patients have had three doses is incredibly reassuring.

Second, we would have to ensure that nursing homes have the funds to put in proper air purifiers (with Hepa Filters) in their facilities. I’m not asking for a complete re-vamp of the HVAC systems (that will take too long). But even small portable air purifiers will make a difference.

Third, we would need to ensure a rapid swab and immunization policy for staff and visitors of nursing homes to further reduce the risk of Covid entering a facility. Just tossing it out there but how about all staff get swabbed once a week regardless of vaccine status, and visitors twice a week?

Fourth, as one of the smartest people I know put it, a bed is just a piece of furniture. We have to ensure that the homes who are short on staff, now have the ability to hire extra staff to take care of the residents in these beds.

The health care system is a behemoth. It is also interdependent on all of its various parts working together. A shortage of nursing home beds, means more people in hospital waiting for nursing homes, which reduces the hospitals ability to provide acute care which leads to further backlogs and delays in medically necessary treatments.

We cannot make nursing homes 100% safe (we can’t make anything 100% safe). But re-opening currently closed nursing home beds in the safest possible manner, will be a small step in the right direction. It will also provide the hospitals with a little bit of extra capacity, should Omicron stress the system more.

Let’s Discuss the Astra Zeneca Covid Vaccine

The following blog is written by Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, MD, CCFP. She is the founder of ARCH Clinic Guelph and Waterloo, Founding Director of Bracelet of Hope and Founder of the Hope Health Centre

Let’s discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine.  I am just going to give you some facts.  You can make your own decision about the AstraZeneca vaccine.

On March 29th,  Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended provinces pause on the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on those under the age of 55 because of safety concerns. NACI’s priority is vaccine safety.   Their decision came after the European Medicines Agency ( EMA), Europe’s Health Canada equivalent, investigated 25 cases of very rare blood clots out of about 20 million AstraZeneca vaccines given.  On March 18th the EMA concluded that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine far outweigh this risk if there is a true increased risk of the blood clots.

Most of these rare blood clots occurred in women under the age of 55 ( 18 out of 25).  Thus, NACI’s recommendation to halt the use of the AZ vaccine in this age group pending further review of the ongoing real-time research.

So, 25 cases out of 20 million vaccinations is a risk of about 1 in a million.  That means that if there actually is an increased risk, the risk is 1 case of the rare blood clots out of 1 million vaccines given. One in a million.

Let’s shed some light on that: The risk of blood clots developing among new users of oral contraceptive pills ( birth control pills) is 8 out of 10,000. Thirty four out of 10,000 women who use  hormone replacement therapy ( HRT ) will develop a blood clot at some point.  And, the risk of developing a blood clot in women in general  is is 16/100,000. 

The Canadian maternal mortality rate ( the rate of death in women during childbirth) is 8.3 deaths per 100,000.

No medical intervention is without risks.  The question is, should we take that risk?  That is what NACI will try to figure out in the coming weeks. Let’s balance that risk of 1 in a million with the risk of COVID-19. 

A new briefing note from a panel of science experts advising the Ontario government on COVID-19 shows a province at a tipping point. Variants that are more deadly are circulating widely, new daily infections have reached the same number at the height of the second wave, and the number of people hospitalized is now more than 20 per cent higher than at the start of the last province-wide lockdown.

These variants are more dangerous and more easily transmitted.  They cause 2.5 to 4.1 deaths per 1000 detected cases.  That’s deaths.  The risk of serious complications with the variants is double the risk of the original COVID-19 virus:  20 out of 100.

Here’s a quote that scared me.  “Right now in Ontario, the pandemic is completely out of control,” Dr. Peter Juni, the scientific director and a professor of medicine and epidemiology with the University of Toronto and member of Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory table.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is over 70% effective up front and almost 100% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalizations from COVID-19. Breathe.  It is not time to throw out the baby with the bath water.  No blood clots have occurred in people over 60.  We should continue using the AstraZeneca vaccine in this age group which is most at risk of serious complications and death from COVID-19.

Which COVID Vaccine Should You Get?

Me getting the first dose of my Covid-19 Vaccine.

Canada now has 4 different vaccines to help us fight COVID-19, BioNtech/Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson. While that’s a (very) good thing, this has led to some inevitable questions about which vaccine is “better” and whether people should wait for one or the other. An email from a friend who questioned the AstraZeneca vaccine inspired me to write this.

First, to re-iterate once again, while is true that all of these vaccines were developed at a rapid pace, the reality is that they all have been thoroughly tested. The shortcuts that were made were made in the bureaucracy, not the human trials. You can read my thoughts on that here, or see my colleague Dr. Greg Rose explain it better here.

There will likely never, ever be a vaccine (of any kind) that is 100 per cent safe (ever), but overall these vaccines are extremely safe for the general population.

The difficult part in sorting out information about the COVID vaccines is two fold. First, there is a whole lot of information that comes out, almost on a daily basis. It’s hard for not just physicians to keep track of it all, but also members of the general public. Second, some of the information that is released is extremely premature, without a full analysis being done. First impressions being lasting impressions, this often times creates an incorrect perception of a vaccine, that is hard to refute later on.

For example, the BioNtech/Pfizer vaccine was initially plagued by concerns that it caused Bell’s palsy (based on a report that 4 people got it after taking the vaccine) and that death was a side effect (based on report in Norway of 33 people over the age of 80 dying after taking the vaccine). It wasn’t until later that a through review showed that the Bell’s palsy issue was actually the same or less than the background rate. Essentially, you would expect about 12 people a year in the vaccine group to get Bell’s palsy anyway, regardless of whether they got the vaccine or not, so the fact that 4 got it didn’t mean it was linked to the vaccine, just that they were going to get it anyway. As for the 33 deaths, turns out that was in keeping with Norways normal death rate for their population of over 80 year olds, so again, not related to the vaccine.

Think of it this way. The most common time to get a heart attack is actually three hours after you wake up. Does this mean eating breakfast causes a heart attack? Of course not. Just because those two things happen close together, doesn’t mean that one caused the other. In statistics this is referred to as “correlation does not imply causation.” Sadly, there is rather a lot of correlation that is brought up about all of these vaccines, and the assumption is made that they are causing problems.

It was initially claimed the Moderna vaccine had more side effects than the BioNtech/Pfizer one. But it was only after studying it more that people realized that these aren’t really side effects, but proof that the vaccine is working. Your second shot of the Moderna vaccine made your immune system mount a response to what it viewed as a foreign body. Thus the muscle aches, fever and headaches that went along with it.

Now most recently there is some sub-optimal information circulating around the AstraZeneca vaccine. First, there was concern that they would not work against certain strains of COVID19, particularly the South African strain. Second is concern about blood clots.

The South African strain issue was particularly overblown. “Only 10% effective” screamed out some headlines. South Africa even stopped using this vaccine as a result. The full story is somewhat different.

Turns out the study that suggested AstraZeneca wouldn’t work against the SouthAfrica variant was very small (2,000 people), and not well done. Further more, what really matters, is preventing deaths, hospitalizations and severe disease and AstraZeneca works for this with the South African strain. Perhaps you may get a mild case of COVID19 (cough, fever, mild muscle aches for a couple of days). But the point of the vaccine is prevention of severe cases and deaths.

Similarly, the blood clot issue again appears to be one of correlation, not causation. The background rate of blood clots in the population would explain the ones found in Europe. Health Canada and Thrombosis Canada is not worried, and you shouldn’t worry either.

So back to the question at hand. Which vaccine should you get? My personal feeling is the J&J one would be the best simply because, logistically it’s much easier. Get one shot and it’s done. The problem with that one is that we have an effete Prime Minister who’s totally botched vaccine procurement for Canadians. There’s a reason #trudeauvaccinefailure is on twitter. Last I checked we are 61st in the world for procurement of vaccines (and for a G-7 country, that’s just embarrassing).

While happily announcing the approval of the J&J vaccine, Trudeau and the Liberals neglected to emphasize the fine print. Namely that the vaccine would likely not start to arrive until the end of April or early May, and that would only be in small amounts. The bulk of this vaccine won’t be in Canada until September.

Of course, right on queue, a few days after boasting about J&J, it was announced there would be production delays. Why the media isn’t talking about the outright incompetence of Trudeau and his government in protecting Canadian lives is beyond me.

Therefore, the best thing you can do is get the first vaccine that you are offered. When you get notified to get your shot, don’t ask which one, just get it. For what matters the most (keeping you out of hospital or dying from COVID19), they all work roughly the same.

I urge you all to do your part, protect yourself, protect others, and let’s get ourselves out of this pandemic, and back to a normal life.

A Great Cause.

As an addendum I would like to encourage all of my readers to consider buying some merchandise from Conquer Covid 19. This all volunteer group did yeoman’s work providing PPE to physicians, health care workers and others in need. Last year they raised $2.4 million and donated around 3 million (!) pieces of PPE.

This year they are selling their extremely boring merchandise (check Ryan Reynolds take on it here) and proceeds will go to LTCfrontline foods, providing hot meals to those workers who are struggling in long term care homes and Call Auntie, an organization that helps Indigenous people navigate issues around COVID19.

Please click here and donate what you can.

One nobody trying to be like the two cool kids wearing ConquerCovid19 merchandise. Please consider donating generously.

HEPA Filters, Focus on Ventilation Can Help Open Economy

This week, much of Ontario moves out of a complete lockdown (I finally get a hair cut!). The move itself has not been without controversy, with some critics saying the government is opening too fast, and others saying they’re opening too slowly.

There is no doubt in my mind that if we can re-open the economy safely, we should. COVID19 has done terrible damage over the past year. Lives lost. Families unable to say goodbye to their loved ones. On going health issues in those who survived COVID19 infections and much, much more. But there is also an increase in the number of people suffering from mental illness, a rise in domestic abuse, and very real economic hardships faced by millions of Canadians.

It has been noted that there were were more deaths than expected in Canada last year, and not all of these “excess deaths” were directly caused by COVID19. We are starting to realize that some of deaths are “indirect”. That’s to say, the social isolation, the lack of emotional, financial and other support, the delayed medical procedures and more, have caused these deaths.

This situation is particularly bad in British Columbia and Alberta, where there were 270 and 360 more deaths than expected between March 15 and April 25 alone, and these were not directly attributed to COVID19.

To be clear, the lockdowns were necessary. And if we open the economy in an un-safe manner, COVID cases will rise again, there will be more death and perhaps even a dreaded third wave. We’ve seen from Sweden what happens when a country doesn’t shut down in the face of COVID. Even their king has admitted Sweden’s approach was a total failure.

It’s just that we cannot ignore the pain and suffering that occurs by a lockdown as well.

That’s why to my mind the focus needs to be on how to re-open safely. We have one of the worst pandemic responses in the world, so we must do better. Is there something we can do, that hasn’t been done in Canada yet?

Turns out, there just might be.

For far too long, Health Canada did not focus on airborne spread of COVID19. They stressed the “droplet” method of transmission, where fluid particles are expelled from your mouth, land on a surface and are then when you touch them, wind up on your fingers, and then into your body when you touch your eyes, nose or mouth. Full disclosure, if you search hard enough, you can find a video of me somewhere on the net saying exactly that, and telling people not to wear masks. It is clearly outdated now, and should be ignored.

Japan, by contrast, focused on airborne spread as far back as February of 2020. Their whole focus was to ensure proper ventilation and using air purifiers with HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters in rooms. Everybody was asked to wear a mask early last year. Granted it is culturally more accepted to wear masks in Japan. But the focus was on airborne spread right from the start.

A diagram showing Japan’s process for dealing with COVID19, part of their submission to “Environment International” – September 2020 edition

How well did Japan do? Japan has a population of 125 million people in a country about 3/4 the size of Baffin Island. As I write this, data from their COVID tracking system shows that 417,116 people have been infected (0.33% of the population) and 7,038 have died (.0056% of the population).

These numbers are all the more remarkable considering that Japan did just about everything else wrong. They did not test enough (at least at the beginning), the lockdown measures were half hearted and voluntary, many pachinko parlours (a mix of gambling and alcohol) stayed open, and traffic on their notoriously crowded commuter trains to work was only down 18%.

Health Canada did not even acknowledge airborne spread of COVID19 until November 2020 (9 months after Japan and 4 months after the World Health Organization). Our Covid19 tracker shows terrible results. We have a population of 38 million. Yet as I write this, we have had 826,528 cases (2.17 % of the population or 6.6 x as many as Japan on a pro-rated basis) and 21,309 deaths (.056% of the population or almost exactly 10 x as many deaths as Japan on a pro-rated basis).

It does make one wonder, if we had approached COVID19 as having airborne spread right from the start, could we have saved a number of lives, and limited the lockdowns we endured? And now that the evidence is strong that COVID19 is airborne, should we not have businesses focus on safe ventilation as a condition for opening?

What’s required for optimal ventilation? Well ideally, you should have an HVAC system that exchanges the air in a given room 6 times an hour with an HEPA filter. HEPA filters can remove the vast majority of droplets that the COVID19 virus (and other viruses!) live in. But the reality is that this would be ultra costly and take far too long to replace every HVAC in most commercial buildings. (Should definitely be a requirement for new commercial properties and especially the new nursing homes Ontario is building).


What can other businesses do instead? One of my patients is a manager at a Tim Hortons. They have 14 tables at the Tim’s. What if the restaurant put a portable air purifier with a HEPA filter on each table? There are many brands that cost $80-$100 each for a small size one. But with one on each table (where people would be talking and eating without masks, thus expelling the virus), you could reduce viral spread.

Granted at that price, the air purifiers would only last about six months, but by that time hopefully we will all be vaccinated anyway.

Similarly, we could mandate appropriate air purifiers in other businesses as requirement for opening. To be clear, people should still wear masks, wash hands regularly and physically distance as much as possible. Those are important and necessary precautions for re-opening. But the HEPA filter purifiers would simply provide that extra level of protection. It’s why I asked my nursing home to install them in their facility (and thank you to the owners of Bay Haven for doing that).

Canadians have suffered terribly over the past year. For the sake of our physical and mental health we need to re-open the economy, but do it in away that will not increase COVID19 infections, and not have us yo-yo between lockdowns and re-opening. Focusing on ventilation and HEPA filters can help us do this safely.

COVID19 Has Exposed Flaws In Our Public Health System

“Be hard on the problem, not on the people.” – unnamed OMA Executive

When I was President of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), I had the privilege of touring the province. The tour was during flu shot season, so I took the opportunity to meet many Public Health physicians and staff. They are all good, hard working people who are dedicated to their communities and doing their best to advocate for the health care needs of the population.

Unfortunately, the Public Health system in Ontario (and Canada) is fragmented and disjointed. This really impeded the ability of Public Health to act in a unified manor prior to the pandemic. But because Public Health wasn’t as “visible” at the time, the flaws in the system remained hidden.

To understand just how this fragmentation affected our health, one only looks at the situation around trans fats. I wrote about this previously, but in short:

– We’ve known since 1993 that trans fats are linked to increased heart disease

– We’ve known since 1995 that Canadians are one of the highest consumers of trans fats in the world

– Denmark, led by their strong public health system, essentially banned trans fats in 2004 and within 2 years had 4% less deaths from heart disease. There was also a reduction in childhood and adolescent obesity.

– The results were so good that many other European countries followed suit.

If we apply the Denmark results to Canada, we could prevent 600 heart attacks a year. Banning trans fats would seem to be a no-brainer, and clearly the type of thing Public Health should effectively advocate for.

But here in Ontario, outside of the City of Toronto trying to ban trans fats in restaurants in 2007 not much has been done about this. Part of this is because Ontario has 35 different Public Health units, who all function independently. They may not even have the same software when collecting data, and some still use paper charts. Because they all function independently, just because Toronto Public Health wants a ban, doesn’t mean all the other units would even know about it, much less share information on it, or advocate for it. And of course, every Province and Territory has their own autonomous Public Health System.

So essentially, the Public Health Units were unable to co-ordinate around this issue, and outside of trying to ban Trans Fats in school cafeterias, and a failed voluntary guideline by Health Canada, not much has happened.

It wasn’t even until 2017 that Health Canada got around to proposing a ban on trans fats, and 4 years later this still hasn’t happened. It’s worthwhile noting that over 10,000 heart attacks could have been prevented if we had acted at the same time as Denmark.

If in “normal”, non-pandemic times, the Public Health system was so fragmented, and disjointed, that something this straightforward couldn’t be accomplished, how would they perform in a once in century pandemic?

The answer, sadly, is not very well.

Just as the various Public Health Units couldn’t co-ordinate on the same message for Trans Fats, it appears the various units can’t co-ordinate on the same messaging around COVID. Case in point, on Nov 4, 2020, Health Canada finally (!) announced that yes, indeed, the coronavirus has airborne spread, and all facilities should take airborne precautions.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Office of Canada announcing COVID19 was, indeed spread by aerosols

Yet a look at the website for my Public Health unit (Simcoe Muskoka) on Jan 10, 2021 (2.5 months later!) still shows the same guidelines that’s before the announcement. Namely, that the virus is spread through droplets and so cleaning surfaces is more important.

From Simcoe Muskoka Public Health, Jan 10, 2021.

So here we have two different messages coming from public health authorities.

By comparison, take a look at Japan. Japan decided back in February 2020 that the virus was aerosolized. They too have many regional public health offices, however, the regional branches send the information to the national office, and the national office makes decisions. Those decisions are clearly communicated to the public, so the same message goes through the country.

They very quickly focused on things such as air purifiers with HEPA filters in rooms, improving ventilation by leaving windows open (even in the crowded community trains) mask wearing, and improved HVAC systems.

A diagram showing Japan’s process for dealing with COVID19, part of their submission to “Environment International” – September 2020 edition.

As a result, on a per capita basis, Japan has only 1/8th the number of infections, and 1/14th the number of deaths from COVID19 as we’ve had in Canada so far.

But it’s not just messaging that’s the problem. Public Health Units are hampered by their archaic systems from adequately preforming the test/trace/isolate process so important to controlling the spread of COVID19.

My practice is close to the border of the Simcoe Muskoka District Health and the Grey Bruce Health Unit. If one of my patients comes down with a reportable illness, I have to figure out which health unit to report to. But they use separate forms. Additionally because they use separate data systems, they can’t share information between the two.

Supposing one of my patients were test to positive for COVID-19. What if they live in Grey Bruce, but work in Simcoe Muskoka. Who should I report this to? And more importantly who is responsible for the contact tracing considering they work in one area and live in another? Especially since they can’t share data.

The result? Effective test/trace/isolate does not occur in Canada.

Compare this to South Korea. South Korea has multiple regional offices for public health, but they’re integrated by the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare (KMHW). They share software, and so can share data and information.

By having all of Public Health integrated, South Korea was able to have one source for information. So not only did they have a consistent message (the KMHW gave two press conferences a day), but they were able to effectively test/trace/isolate.

On a per capita basis, South Korea has only had 1/13th the number of COVID cases as Canada, and 1/20th the number of deaths.

Canada’s response to the COVID pandemic is among the worst in the world. Only the fact that we are next door to a country that has had arguably the worst response in the world seems to prevent Canadians from recognizing this fact. If there is one learning that me must take forward from this, it is that lack of an integrated, seamless and co-ordinated Public Health system has cost us many lives.

As a country, we need to support the people working in Public Health by improving the systems they have, so they can protect us in the future.

Note: This blog is based on the first part of a presentation I gave to the Public Health Youth Association of Canada (my thanks to them for asking me to speak). If you are suffering from insomnia, or if you are generally good person and want to support young people who are keen to improve the world, feel free to watch the presentation here:

Facts and Myths About the COVID Vaccine

Disclaimer: As always, the information I present here is meant to be an overall summary of what we know, and not specific medical advice for one person. If you have questions, please talk to your doctor.

As I write this blog, almost 52 million doses of the new COVID vaccines have been delivered to people around the world. Our knowledge about COVID (and the vaccines) continues to increase almost exponentially, and while we don’t know everything yet, here’s what we’ve learned so far.

Time to put the whole “Guinea Pig” argument to rest.

Many people have told me they don’t want to be a human “guinea pig” to test the vaccine on. The clinical trials on the vaccines (while quick) were thorough. More people have gotten their first dose of the vaccine than the entire population of Canada. If you get it now, you won’t be first. In fact you’ll be after this guy:

What if I have an allergic reaction?

After Britain warned against giving the Pfizer vaccine to people with a history of severe allergies, some people were concerned. However, now that we have given so many of these vaccines, we know that the rate of a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) with the Pfizer vaccine is one in 90,090. Your odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime are 1 in 15,030. Remember, all the vaccine sites have Epipen.

The Moderna Vaccine is Better/Has Less Side Effects

Some people are waiting for the Moderna vaccine. However, both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are equally effective. I had suggested that if your allergies were so bad that you needed an epipen, you might want to wait for the Moderna vaccine. But Canada’s federal government has done a poor job of ordering the vaccines. With Canada having deferred purchase of more of the Moderna vaccine (!), you probably should just get the first one you are offered.

I’m Worried About a Sore Arm and Other Symptoms After

Sore arm, fever, and muscle aches are all symptoms people can get after any vaccine. However, what’s important to note is that these are not side effects. A vaccine works by stimulating your immune system. If you get a cold, your immune system activates to fight the virus, and as part of that, will often give you a fever, and muscle aches. You may feel crummy, but your immune system is doing its job.

If this happens to you after a vaccine, it may be miserable to experience but at least you can take it as a sign your immune system is working, and you are getting a response to the vaccine.

It’s off label but I ensured that all of the resident of Bay Haven Nursing home got 1,000 mg of Acetaminophen three times a day the day before, the day of and the day after the vaccine. We have had no reports of flu like illnesses after the vaccine. I intend to take this myself before my second shot, and you may want to consider this as well.

I Am Pregnant or Trying to Get Pregnant

There were women of child bearing age in both the Moderna and Pfizer studies (although no pregnant women). The vaccine did not appear to cause issues. We routinely give other vaccines (like the flu shot) to pregnant women and it is felt to be safe.

When I study the science around it, there is no reason that the COVID vaccine should affect pregnancy. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada has stated that: “Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should be offered vaccination at anytime if they are eligible and no contraindications exist”. Please talk to your doctor about this.

But I Still Have to Wear a Mask/Get Swabbed/Get Screened!

Alas, yes you do. I share the frustration on this one. Health Canada only approves what it knows. The evidence from the studies on the vaccines was very strong that they would reduce your chance of getting COVID. However, to study whether the vaccine will reduce the risk of transmission is much more complicated. It requires a high level contact tracing which we don’t have in Canada.

However, every other successful vaccine in the past has reduced the ability to transmit whatever disease we were protecting against. That’s why we no longer have small pox, and until the rise of the renowned neurobiologist/brain surgeon Jenny McCarthy, had almost eliminated measles. I’m hoping that Health Canada will lift the requirement to wear masks for people vaccinated in the near future.

This should at least show you how much confidence they have in the Covid vaccines. I mean if an organization that historically takes it’s time to approve things moved so quickly when they saw the evidence for the Covid vaccines.

Are You Sure These Vaccines Were Tested Properly? They Were Approved Awfully Fast.

There was good reason to be approved quickly. As I mentioned in a previous blog, there was a significant reduction in bureaucracy. Everybody (drug companies/regulatory bodies/politicians) agreed we needed a vaccine as soon as possible, so the five years (!) of red tape was cut.

The second thing to keep in mind is that to test a vaccine, you have to expose people who had the vaccine to the illness. For a condition like shingles, you often times have to wait for years to see if the virus is effective, because as painful and awful as it is, Shingles is still relatively rare. It takes a LOT of time to accumulate the data needed to see if enough people benefited.

For COVID, one perverse benefit of the fact that the United States has one of, if not the worst responses to the pandemic in the world is that the virus is, well everywhere. That means the over 70,000 people in the studies could be exposed to the virus very quickly, and we could see very quickly if the vaccine worked.

Moreover, it’s a myth that all the drug companies who developed a vaccine were approved. There are 14 vaccines for COVID that were being developed. But if flawed, the trials were halted (like CSL in Australia or Sanofi-Glen‘s vaccine).

The Vaccine Is Genetic and Will Affect My DNA

Simply not true. The mRNA used in the vaccine will not affect your DNA. DNA is the stuff that makes you, well you. I can’t explain it any better than Dr. Abdurrahman:

I Don’t Trust Big Pharma/Bill Gates is Injecting Nanochips Into My Body/It’s an Illuminati Conspiracy

………. I got nothing. If you really believe this there’s nothing I can do to convince you otherwise.

Should I Get The Vaccine (Whichever one) When It’s My Turn?

YES! The lockdowns and economic harm caused by this pandemic are having a terrible toll on us. The social isolation, job loss, economic harm, mental illness and much, much more is devastating society.

If we want to visit our friends, if we want to go to a restaurant, if we want to go to Church/Mosque/Synagogue/Temple, if we want to travel, if we want to……..simply live a normal life again, we need to get everyone possible immunized. Without this, the pain we all suffer from this pandemic will continue.

Letter to the Staff of My Nursing Home

Note: The following is a letter I sent to all the staff of Bay Haven Seniors, a joint Retirement and Nursing Home. There has been rather a lot of variable information about the new Covid vaccines out there, and I wanted to address that up front. Some of this information may help you as well, so I’m copying it here.

To:  All Staff at Bay HavenFrom: Dr. M. S. Gandhi, Medical Director
Re: New Vaccines for COVID19


As I think all of you are now aware, Bay Haven has been fortunate to have our staff given the opportunity to immunize early with the new vaccines for COVID19.  There has been much written about the vaccines in print and on Social Media (unfortunately!!) .  I wanted to let you know about some information on the development of the vaccine, and why I do strongly encourage people to get the vaccine.


In “normal” times (remember those?), when a drug company thinks about whether it’s a good idea to develop a vaccine for a certain disease, there is a bit of convoluted process that has to happen first.  Some officious bureaucrat at the drug company does a cost analysis on how much it will cost to make the vaccine and how much profit could be made from it.  Then it goes to a regulatory body in the host country where some other pointy headed bureaucrat looks at how widespread the disease is and whether it’s worth while to approve a trial.  Then it goes back to the company where some lawyer reviews the cost/benefit ratio, whence it goes back to the officious bureaucrat and then back to the pointy headed one.  Amazingly enough (and I’m not kidding here) this process can take 2,3, even 5 years before a trial even begins.


This time, every body agreed right off the bat that it was good idea to have a vaccine for COVID19, and so the up to five years of paperwork was eliminated. Seriously, that bureaucratic bafflegab can take that long.


The next step after the paper work is done is for a vaccine to undergo three phases of trials.  It’s important to know that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines DID undergo all three phases of trials.  Given the catastrophic situation around COVID, the trials were done quickly, but they were fully completed.  The Pfizer trials had about 42,000 people (by the way about 35% were people of colour ).  The Moderna vaccine had over 30,000 people (also with 35% people of colour).  The trials were extremely successful (94-95% effectiveness).  

The main side effects are the same as you would get from just about every other vaccine (pain at the injection site, fatigue, muscle pain, joint pain, fever).  These side effects are rare and and if they occur, go away in a couple of days.


There has also been a lot of talk about the fact that these are the first vaccines to be developed using “mRNA” technology.  I appreciate that when people talk about genetics, it can cause many people to have second thoughts.  But, mRNA technology has been studied for something like 30 years now in the oncology field.  Additionally, mRNA cannot and will not affect your genes.  It’s your genes that make mRNA in your body.  Your mRNA can’t go backwards and affect your genes.  


In short mRNA vaccines are an efficient, safe process.  They actually herald a new era of vaccine development that promises rapid and effective prevention for new pandemics in the future.  This is a good thing.


I also want to address some concerns about side effects circulating on social media.  The first is with respect to Bell’s Palsy.  There were four people in the Pfizer trials who developed Bell’s Palsy (now recovered) after getting a dose of the vaccine.  This translates to a side effect rate of .01%.  However, the “background rate” for Bell’s Palsy is .03%.  Put another way, if we were to simply pick 40,000 people at random, and watch them for a year, we would expect 12 people to get Bell’s Palsy.  This is why health professionals don’t feel that Bell’s Palsy is related to the vaccines.


Second, there is some talk about anaphylactic reactions (which can happen with any vaccines).  With the Pfizer vaccine the concern is polyethylene glycol.  Moderna has this in their vaccine too, but it seems in a different manner.  There may be some concern about this for patients who have severe allergies (to the point that you carry an epi-pen).  The best recommendation I could give is that if, and only if, you allergies are so bad that you need an epi-pen, it would be reasonable to wait for the Moderna vaccine (which just got approved today).  We expect this vaccine to be available for distribution in February.  If you do not need an epi-pen, then you should get the Pfizer one as it is out already.


If you want additional material, there is a nice thread from one of Ontario’s leading infectious disease specialists here:
https://threader.app/thread/1338610832884854784


There’s also a great interview with one of Ontario’s leading allergists/immunologists here:
https://twitter.com/jkwan_md/status/1339344606555746305


Finally, I would like to thank all of you for all the hard work you have done this year.  2020 is a year that we will never forget, and I suspect a year that we are all anxious to give the boot too.  Yet despite the hardship, the challenges and the seemingly unending (bad) surprises, you have continued to keep the residents safe, clean and comfortable.  Providing this at the latter stages of peoples lives is the absolute minimum sign of respect we can show, and the staff have done that in spades this year.


Thank you again, and allow me to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!


Dr. M. S. Gandhi

Medical Director, Bay Haven