May 12, 2022 Response to the BC Premier and Minister of Labour’s statement on lives “needlessly cut short” by “work-related illnesses or injuries” In many places in BC, on April 28, flags were flown at half-mast in response to the national Day of Mourning for Persons Killed or Injured in the Workplace. Also referred to… Continue reading “May we see the data?”
Protect Our Province BC, Safe Schools Coalition BC and BC School COVID Tracker are coming together to ask for mask protection in indoor public spaces, businesses, schools and on public transit in BC. The removal of BC’s mandated health protections has us concerned for the health and well-being of all British Columbians. “Now that masking… Continue reading Protect Our Province BC, Safe Schools Coalition BC and BC School COVID Tracker Issue Joint Press Release
On March 11th, the British Columbia Public Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry lifted the indoor mask mandate for most public places, with the main exception being healthcare settings. TransLink immediately followed suit and lifted its own mask requirement, leaving commuters on buses and trains with very few COVID-19 precautions. Unlike BC, Ontario and Quebec have… Continue reading Transit Users Ask Translink to Keep Mask Protections in Place.
Share this: April 2, 2022 A Guest Post by Tim Henthorne, B.A.Sc., P. Eng Over the past two years, we have been flooded with opinions regarding the wearing of masks, all while trying to learn how to deal with the existential threat of COVID-19. Unfortunately, much confusion has come from Public Health itself with its… Continue reading N95 Masks & the Transmission of COVID-19
Open Letter to all BC Education stakeholders at the K-12 Education Restart Steering Committee, including Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside, BC Centre for Disease Control, BC School Trustees Association, BC Principals & Vice Principals Association, BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils, First Nations Education Steering Committee, BC Teachers’ Federation, CUPE BC, plus those contributing to policy-making… Continue reading Safe Schools Coalition BC calls for Universal Masking in K-12 Schools
There is no great debate about aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 except in BC Public Health Officers’ minds. How else would you explain super-spreading events? What about infections in quarantine hotels in Australia? After all, individuals were in separate rooms? How do you explain that outdoors is safer than indoors? Two metres should be enough for… Continue reading We Need to Name It, to Tame It.
This past week has been full of what Dr. Henry calls “intentional disinformation” about COVID-19. But the disinformation was not only spread by anti-vax and anti-mask groups. This week, our own BC public health officials joined in with two scheduled presentations: Child Care: Discussing COVID-19 with Public Health and North Vancouver School District’s Q & A… Continue reading What happens when misinformation is spread by Public Health?
BC is embarking on its fifth COVID-19 wave on the back of a yet to be resolved 4th Delta wave. Feels like déjà vu, except this time, it’s Omicron, a much more transmissible variant that evades antibody immunity provided by prior infection or a second dose of vaccine. In BC, many double vaccinated adults are… Continue reading BC Public Health’s pandemic response, the great TRIZ game!
Public health’s main role is to keep the population safe and healthy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, each of us has learned to calculate our own personal risk and the risk of other members of our households in order to stay safe. This is similar to the process of shared decision making in medicine, where a… Continue reading BC continues to fail in its pandemic response. That spells disaster with Omicron.
“How did this outbreak so quickly engulf the entire facility?” asked reporter Aaron McArthur last October, referring to the recent SARS-CoV-2 outbreak at Willingdon Care Centre in Burnaby. The answer has been floating around—for well over 18 months. Contained within the pandemic storm of sad statistics has been a heated debate between different groups of… Continue reading Droplets vs. Aerosols: What’s the Difference and Why Does it Matter?