Adam Prudhomme
Editor
During his weekly Skype call with local media on Friday, KFLA Public Health medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore uttered a word many Canadians have longed to hear: ‘post-pandemic.’
Though the region isn’t there yet, Moore said if the vaccination rate continues at its current pace, the post-pandemic phase could arrive by autumn.
“It is anticipated that if every person (in KFLA) who wants to get a vaccine comes forward by September, we would have around 90 per cent of our population provided with vaccine,” said Moore. “That is remarkable. With that 90 per cent of first doses, we’d have a certain percentages, like 25-30 per cent, that would have accomplished their second dose by the fall as well and we’d continue to work with all partners throughout the fall to finish the second doses. That is a remarkable strategy, that is a strategy that could possibly have us the highest immunization rates in the world for first and second doses combined which would only allow us to start thinking of that post-pandemic world and how we can live within that.”
When asked what the region could expect to see this summer, Moore says the re-opening of the economy will be driven by vaccination rates as well as COVID-19 case rates.
“It’s the beginning of August that I would say our economy will be opening up more fully,” said Moore. “There will be larger groups to be able to gather in Ontario and I think it’s a very cautious, prudent approach to re-opening. You can anticipate I think, if everything progresses in those 21 day frameworks, which are driven by all of us improving our immunization rates, by monitoring the incidents of disease of COVID in our community, that we can see August being a really positive for all of us with larger social groups, larger gathering, certainly travel within the province would be appropriate and then we’d have to monitor how other provinces are doing to be able to discuss whether travel across Canada would be acceptable.”
Locally, the sharp decline in COVID-19 cases has placed the KFLA region in what would have been the ‘green’ community status under the previous provincial monitoring level. Green is the best a region can be, the opposite end of the spectrum compared to the current ‘grey’ level lockdown that the entire province has been under since March.
“We are making remarkable progress in terms of increasing protection of our community through immunization,” said Moore. “Right now, as of today, we’ve had two new (COVID-19) cases, we have had seven individuals recover today so the number of active cases in our community is down to 18. That’s great news for KFLA. If you recall just a few weeks ago we had cases over 100, if not headed towards 150. Our rate of illness now is at one of its lowest levels in a very, very long time. We’re at 3.3 cases per 100,000 people over the last week. To put that in perspective, there’s many areas in our province now that have over 100 cases per 100,000, chiefly in the GTA area.”
Moore says he’d fully support a regional opening for schools and a return to in-class learning for KFLA for the month of June. That decision is made at the provincial level, with Premier Doug Ford expected to make an announcement later this evening.
“We’re very confident that together with our school boards, our teachers, our parents, our students that we can have a safe re-opening,” Moore said of KFLA schools. “To reiterate, the level of illness in our community is exceptionally low relative to anywhere else in the province right now. We are well in the green at 3.5 cases per 100,000. I do think that we can very safely open.”
As of Friday, over 60 per cent of the adult population within KFLA had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Moore says a steady supply over the coming months will allow the region to continue to push towards the 90 per cent mark by August. Just in the last week 16,000 residents received their first dose, pushing the total number to 116,433.
“We absolutely expect this volume of patients to be able to be immunized to continue throughout June,” said Moore. “We have a very good supply chain of Pfizer vaccine and we’re hearing we might even get more and more of the Moderna vaccine. The two mNRA vaccines, which are very similar, we can expect to have an abundance of supply for June and potentially we’ll be able to increase the number of clinics that we have. Very good news on that front. As we increase our first doses, we’ve heard from the government that they’re now allowing second doses, particularly for those that are 80 and over, they’re allowed to start booking on May 31 to receive their second dose. We may be shortening that four-month interval for some individuals to be much shorter. It can be as short as 28 days now for 80s and over individuals in our community.”
Moore says at the current national rate, Canada could have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world by the fall.
“I think together as a country, as we all achieve higher immunization rates our country becomes safer day by day and hence the post-pandemic era for all of us will allow safe travel across Ontario and Canada and almost back to normal post-pandemic wise for August but we’ll all still have to be monitoring symptoms, getting tested if we develop any new symptoms,” said Moore. “I think wearing masks and good hand hygiene is a good practice for us to continue throughout the fall, especially when the viral pathogens normally come back every fall and we’ll have to do our best to differentiate them from COVID as we head into September, October, November, etc.”
On the topic of possible COVID-19 passports, Moore says while those might be introduced at the international level, he doesn’t think they’ll be necessary for Canadians to attend events or visit regions within Canada.
“I don’t think that will come to fruition, but certainly externally many countries are now requesting vaccine strategy and proof to come in and visit,” Moore said of local vaccine passports. “I don’t think that’ll ever happen within the country. I do anticipate though that our country will have one of the highest immunization rates globally.”
More locally, he says he expects KFLA to be one of the highest vaccinated regions in the province as well.
“I’m very proud of the increases demand for vaccine in KFLA,” said Moore. “I think we’ll have a very high immunization rate. When you have that, the risk of tourists bringing the virus in or causing outbreaks within our community will be exceptionally, exceptionally low because these vaccines are causing what’s called sterile immunity in a significant number of individuals. Even if someone coughs the virus on to you, you have such good immunity that you don’t carry it in your nose or your throat anymore. When you have sterilizing immunity in a significant proportion, that really doesn’t allow the virus to be brought from the workplace back to your home or your grandparents very easily at all. That’s very unique with these vaccines that they provide that high level of immunity to prevent you from carrying it. That to me is very good news that we didn’t know before.”