- To our valued Coronavirus Brief readers: It’s time for our coverage of the virus and pandemic to evolve. Starting March 14, this newsletter will no longer appear daily, though it may still pop up occasionally to let you know about COVID-19 in Canada, and as news warrants.
- Several indicators of pessimism in national survey of pandemic’s effects 2 years on.
- Federal government hasn’t followed through on early pandemic PPE promises, opposition members say.
- Taking a closer look at the only World Health Organization region currently experiencing rising COVID-19 cases, deaths.
- Explore: B.C. officials announce near-immediate end of mask mandate, phasing out of vaccine card…. Ontario’s public health doctor talks to CBC Radio on why masks need not be widely mandated in a few weeks…. Manitoba may have had highest per capita Omicron infections in Canada, per one analysis.
COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the worst in people, pulled Canadians further apart, survey suggests
Two years of living through the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on a toll on Canadians, according to the findings of a new survey carried out by the Angus Reid Institute in partnership with CBC.
The survey coincides with the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic on March 12, 2020.
To be clear, the results were not unrelentingly grim.
A large majority of Canadians (70 per cent) said they are thankful to be living in Canada during the pandemic. Slightly less than half said they have since made significant positive lifestyle changes and slightly more than 80 per cent said it has made them reflect on what is really important in their lives.
But heading into the third year of the pandemic, about 41 per cent of Canadians say that “life overall” has become worse, compared to 23 per cent who say it is better now.
Four out of five of those surveyed agreed that the pandemic has “pulled people further apart.” And about the same number believe “the pandemic has brought out the worst in people.”
Meanwhile, slightly more than 60 per cent of those surveyed said the level of compassion Canadians have for one another is “weaker.”
Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, said she was struck “to see that degradation, that breakdown of whatever sense of social cohesion we thought we might have felt this time two years ago.”
“If there has been change, it’s been change for the worse,” she said.
There were also adverse findings with respect to the pandemic’s effect on household financial situations, travel plans and relationships with family and friends.
The pandemic also struck close to home for the majority of Canadians, with more than half (54 per cent) saying a close friend or family member has been infected with the virus. One-third said an immediate family member caught COVID-19 and one in five people were personally infected.
Earlier surveys have indicated the pandemic’s toll on depression and mental health.
To read more about the Angus Reid/CBC survey results, how the survey was conducted and the margin of error, click here.
From CBC News
As provinces begin to lift pandemic health measures, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra says Ottawa is looking at when it can lift restrictions for federally regulated areas. 7:11
Data shows Canada remains dependent on COVID-19 protective gear from abroad
The vast majority of masks, N95 respirators, gloves, screening equipment and other personal protective equipment (PPE) purchased by the federal government continues to come from foreign companies, according to information obtained by Radio-Canada.
When COVID-19 hit back in March 2020, Ottawa spent millions on buying new gear. Per the federal government, Malaysia, China, and Thailand were the biggest suppliers of rubber gloves, China the main supplier of face and eye protection and Australia and the United States, followed by China and Mexico, Canada’s major suppliers of ventilators.
For more complex forms of protection and medical devices such as gas masks and breathing appliances, the U.S. was the dominant supplier.
But Ottawa also called on Canadian businesses and manufacturers to help deliver critical health supplies as existing PPE stockpiles were low or had expired.
According to Procurement Canada figures, Canada signed contracts worth $8 billion for PPE of all kinds between March 2020 and September 2021. At least $2.5 billion of these contracts were awarded to Canadian companies, with some contract values protected for commercial confidentiality reasons.
All of the protective goggles and vinyl gloves purchased by Ottawa come from foreign companies. Close to 99 per cent of nitrile gloves, 90 per cent of surgical masks and screening equipment and 85 per cent of N95 respirators come from foreign companies, too, according to the review.
Paul Sweeny is an Ontario businessman who has spent $6 million to respond to the call from Ottawa. His company, SwenCo, transformed its Waterloo safety shoe factory in order to manufacture surgical masks.
“We took the plunge to serve our country, but we were not rewarded,” he said.
The irony, said Sweeny, is that his company received almost $2 million in federal funding to build a sterile room in order to be able to manufacture these masks. He has to start repaying that interest-free loan in April.
“It’s frustrating, very frustrating,” he said.
Conservative and Bloc Québécois politicians were quick to seize on the shortcomings.
“After investing millions of dollars, we are not taking advantage of our national production capacity,” said Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus.
Remote Pacific islands grapple with first major outbreaks, South Korea and Vietnam set case records
The World Health Organization’s latest epidemiological update this week indicated that of the six regions it delineates around the world, only the Western Pacific region saw an increase in COVID-19 cases compared to the previous week. It was also the only region that saw a substantial increase in deaths attributed to the current coronavirus.
The Western Pacific region’s cases increased by 46 per cent and deaths by 29 per cent compared to the previous seven-day period. For reference, Europe saw decreases of 18 and 15 per cent, respectively, for those metrics, while there was a drop in the Americas of 24 per cent in cases and nine per cent with respect to COVID-19 deaths.
It reflects the fact that some remote Pacific islands, whose isolation had protected them for more than two years, are just now grappling with their first outbreaks.
Tonga reported its first outbreak after the virus arrived with international aid vessels following the Jan. 15 eruption of a massive volcano. The Solomon Islands also saw the first outbreak in January and now has thousands of cases and more than 100 deaths.
But WHO’s definition of Western Pacific also includes highly populous, sometimes densely populated hubs of commerce and manufacturing such as China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam. (See the graphic below for some case trends in the region).
In Hong Kong, experts say the region’s worst outbreak to date may have peaked, but officials are nowhere near being able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Hong Kong authorities reported 31,392 local infections on Thursday, down from more than 50,000 infections the previous day. Hong Kong has seen more than 600,000 infections since the latest wave began at the end of December.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said Wednesday that reducing deaths is the city’s priority. Hong Kong is dedicating several hospitals to COVID-19 treatment and building an emergency hospital that will be staffed by medical workers from the mainland.
In South Korea, new daily infections have surpassed 300,000 for the first two times in the pandemic this week, according to the Yonhap news agency, and those numbers likely don’t reflect the widespread activity on Wednesday as the country held its presidential election. There were 206 more deaths recorded on Thursday, with the country’s pandemic total seemingly about to soon pass 10,000 deaths; the figure currently stands at 9,646.
Vietnam has also set a daily infection record this week, with more than 265,000 new cases reported on Wednesday. New deaths reported pushed the overall toll in the country of 97 million past 41,000.
The region will be worth monitoring. Delta-driven outbreaks in Vietnam and Malaysia last year were said to have impacted manufacturing hubs, leading to global supply chain disruptions.
A repeat is not guaranteed, however. Malaysia appears to be past the peak of its Omicron variant wave, and this week announced plans to welcome more tourists next month, while vaccination rates have increased considerably since the aforementioned 2021 outbreaks.
As well, as with other parts of the world, there is a greater tolerance for higher case counts than earlier in the pandemic because of growing vaccination coverage and Omicron’s transmissibility.
People who aren’t sick can carry on about their daily lives. For example, thousands of mostly young fans welcomed homegrown pop phenomenon BTS for their first concert on South Korean soil in two years on Thursday night. But there were plenty of mitigation measures in place — capacity at the 70,000-seat Seoul Olympic Stadium was capped at 15,000 and fans were prohibited from cheering or screaming, using mechanical clappers to express their appreciation.
Today’s graphic
COVID-19 in Asia outlook
New COVID-19 cases per million in some countries that are major exporters to Canada and the West.
A previous Delta-driven wave in some of these countries in 2021 caused some global supply chain disruptions.
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