Coronavirus: Canada’s best-kept secret? The Atlantic bubble
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-canadas-best-kept-secret-the-atlantic-bubble/a-56269066
Leadership
LETTER: “Time for government to take aerosol transmission of COVID-19 seriously”
The following open letter from 363 Canadian experts was sent to the prime minister, premiers and chief medical officers of the federal, provincial and territorial governments. We are a group of physicians, scientists, occupational health and safety experts, engineers and nursing professionals who have been following COVID-19 developments closely. We are deeply concerned by the […]
Fancourt, Daisy. 2020. “People started breaking Covid rules when they saw those with privilege ignore them.” Guardian UK Opinion, January 2nd, 2020.
Compliance must be seen as the norm, or people will not stick to the restrictions. Dr Daisy Fancourt leads the UK Covid-19 Social Study at University College London. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/02/follow-covid-restrictions-break-rules-compliance FULL TEXT: We’ve heard repeatedly during the past year that until mass vaccination is achieved, the key to managing the Covid-19 epidemic is controlling human behaviour. […]
“Is it time to build the Canadian Shield?”
COVID STRATEGIC CHOICES publishes: Understanding The Canadian Shield (Dec 30th, 2020) https://covidstrategicchoices.ca/ This strategy is designed to shield Canadians and our economy from both COVID and the unintended consequences of the fight against COVID. Determined action over the next few weeks could save 5,000 lives, create 320,000 jobs, and generate $37 B of economic growth […]
Public Health Approaches to COVID-19: Successful Strategies vs. Unsuccessful Strategies
Yaneer Bar-Yam endcoronavirus.org, covidactiongroup.net, isagcovid19.org, simplecovid.org, necsi.edu New England Complex Systems Institute Adapted from Tweet, December 13, 2020 I have been working on pandemic outbreaks for 15 years. There is a misunderstanding of the difference between the response in much of the West, versus successful countries (including New Zealand and Australia). Summarizing: 1.Reactive versus proactive and goal oriented. 1/- […]
Mackay, Ian M. 2020. “The Swiss Cheese Respiratory Virus Pandemic Defense.” Infographic, accessed December 26, 2020. virologydownunder.com
The Swiss cheese infographic that went viral from: Ian M. Mackay, PhD Virology (University of Queensland) A new version with colour & division inspiration from @uq_news and strict mouse design oversight by @kat_arden (ver3.0).It reorganises slices into personal & shared responsibilities (think of this in terms of all the slices rather than any single […]
Rocha, R., Singh, I., Perkins, J. 2020. “Analysis of new data suggests Atlantic provinces that remained on high alert had effective approach” CBC News, Dec 26, 2020.
As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to hit many parts of the country, provinces that were quick to act with strict containment measures have been more successful in limiting the spread, a CBC News analysis has found. Using data from Oxford University that tracks provincial government responses to the contagion, we see […]
Global Canada, 2020. “International best practices for managing COVID.” Global Canada Working Paper: Version 4.1 December 23, 2020
SUMMARY Living with COVID in the world is a reality. Living with COVID in our communities is a choice—quite possibly not the right choice. Zero COVID community transmission does not mean elimination: it means successfully stopping all local infections and eradicating the occasional new cases—whether from external infection or hidden local reservoirs—until vaccines are widely […]
Baker, M.G., Wilson, N., and Blakely, T. 2020. “Elimination could be the optimal response strategy for covid-19 and other emerging pandemic diseases.” BMJ 2020;371:m4907, 22 December 2020.
Michael Baker and colleagues argue that aiming for elimination of community transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could offer important advantages over a suppression or mitigation strategy with ongoing transmission. The covid-19 pandemic might be remembered for the astonishingly rapid development of effective vaccines. But it should also be remembered as the first respiratory disease pandemic […]
UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). 2020. “TFC: Children and transmission – update paper, 17 December 2020”
Update paper by TFC on the role children in transmission of COVID-19. It updates the 4 November 2020 TFC paper on children, schools and transmission. It was considered at SAGE 74 on 22 December 2020. The paper is the assessment of the evidence at the time of writing. As new evidence or data emerges, SAGE […]