OPINION: As doctors, we say Canada's federal COVID-19 policies need to go & More News Here

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By: Dr. Neil Rau, Dr. Martha Fulford, Dr. Pooya Kazemi and Dr. Ari Joffe

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Many nations have deserted vaccine passports and journey testing for COVID-19. Yet Canada stays one of many world’s slowest to grudgingly loosen up restrictions.

Generally talking, governments make coverage primarily based on, amongst different issues, credible sources of scientific info. Does the Trudeau authorities actually ‘follow the science’? As medical medical doctors, we’d like to critically look at some current statements.

On June 14, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos mentioned “two doses are not enough now to protect against infection and transmission. That is why we are transitioning now to an ‘up-to-date’ vaccination definition of what it means to be adequately protected against COVID-19”

What is the objective of vaccination? Are we nonetheless attempting to cease transmission? Have the goalposts moved in the direction of everybody needing a 3rd dose, or maybe a fourth one?

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Two doses of vaccine assist maintain high-risk individuals with energetic COVID-19 out of the hospital – that’s safety. Any variety of vaccine doses won’t cease transmission as efficacy in opposition to an infection quickly declines. Moreover, the virus reinvents itself with the emergence of latest variants, together with the most recent descendants of Omicron which have emerged since Dec. 2021.

This in flip permits for an infection regardless of prior vaccination. COVID-19 is right here to keep. Our triple vaccinated, now twice contaminated, Prime Minister illustrates the purpose.

A New England Journal of Medicine research confirmed that six months after a second Pfizer shot, vaccine efficacy in opposition to symptomatic Omicron an infection fell to 8.8%. As for boosters, research on the third and even a fourth dose present the same image of waning efficacy inside months. To forestall transmission, we would need a carousel of repeat immunizations for everybody each three months. This is impractical and unimaginable.

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Natural immunity, absent from all authorities communique, supplies safety that’s not less than nearly as good because the vaccine. Some of the “unvaccinated” are extra possible to have pure immunity from dwelling in high-density settings and take public transit to work to face the general public in low-income jobs. Many didn’t even get examined. So the irony is that the very individuals who confronted the virus full blast and developed pure immunity had been probably the most deplored and penalized by vaccine passport policies.

On June 20, 2022, the federal authorities suspended vaccination necessities for home and outbound journey, federally regulated transportation sectors and federal authorities staff. However, the specter of the attainable return of those mandates hangs over Canadians. Vaccine passports and their vestigial stays (ArriveCAN) ought to be historical past.

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On June 14, Duclos mentioned: “Our rate of boosters [third and fourth doses] in Canada is too low. It’s lower than all G7 countries and that is not good …”

The booster charge for your complete inhabitants is irrelevant: the well being care system shouldn’t be going to collapse now. For Canadian populations the place booster protection is perhaps useful, protection charges are excessive at 77% for these over 60 years outdated and 86% for these over 70 years outdated.

Even for these with out boosters, 90% of all adults and 94% of these over 60 years outdated have obtained not less than 2 doses that are good safety as talked about earlier than. We’re not even counting pure immunity or a mixture of each. And the Omicron pressure is much less virulent. Given such excessive inhabitants immunity and advances in therapeutics, we shouldn’t be obsessing over booster vaccination charges in any respect.

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On June 10, a spokesperson for Duclos said: “It is important to note that [random testing] will be reinstated as this is the only way we have of detecting new variants coming into the country, given that provinces and territories are no longer doing any PCR testing”.

This shouldn’t be resumed. Random traveller testing shouldn’t be the one manner to detect new variants. Random gene sequencing of native circumstances serves the identical goal. Variants are right here earlier than you already know they’re right here, as Omicron was possible in Nova Scotia in Nov. 2021  earlier than the WHO notification in Dec. 2021.

Testing each single returning traveller doesn’t maintain out new variants – see what occurred with New Zealand with Omicron. Testing simply provides prices and main inconveniences for travellers and the trade alike. It took the dangerous optics of airport delays and dissent throughout the Liberal ranks to lastly droop testing – medical professionals and trade teams additionally agreed.

In abstract, federal COVD-19 coverage continues to lag the science – it doesn’t comply with it. The query now could be whether or not the spin medical doctors, not the medical medical doctors, are making coverage.

Dr. Neil Rau, Infectious Diseases Specialist and Medical Microbiologist, Oakville / Toronto, Ontario.

Dr. Martha Fulford, Infectious Diseases Specialist, Hamilton, Ontario.

Dr. Pooya Kazemi, Anesthesiologist, Victoria, BC.

Dr. Ari Joffe, Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Critical Care Medicine Specialist, Edmonton, Alberta.