Health Committee on Feb. 19th, 2021

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

If I may be more pointed, though, have you revised your public guidance in response? I take it the answer to that would be that you have not yet, but you may be in the process of doing so. Would that be accurate?

[Stephen Bent]

Yes. I would say that in some instances we have made modifications over the course of the past several months, but we are in the process now with the provinces and territories of reviewing our guidance.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay.

Now, just to get to a really basic question, does the severity of disease caused by emerging variants of concern differ from the disease caused by previously dominant strains of SARS-CoV-2 virus?

[Dr. Guillaume Poliquin]

The issue of severity is one of the markers that would elevate a variant to a variant of concern. The determination of increase in severity is work that has been under way for the three variants of concerns most reported to date. Preliminary results from the U.K. suggest that there may be an increase of severity among older individuals affected by the variant first identified in the U.K., not children. But these are fairly complex epidemiological studies that have to take multiple factors into account, including the strain on health systems, so the precision of the estimates will be lagging as the science evolves.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I will squeeze in a final question. What impact, if any, has the emergence of new variants of concern had on Canada's vaccination strategy?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

The witnesses may answer quickly, please.

[Kimberly Elmslie]

I would say, Mr. Chair, that the emergence of variants of concern has certainly added an important dimension to all of the work that we're doing under our vaccination strategy as we look at the effect on transmission and as we look at the effect on severity of disease.

It does not change the plans, of course, that we have for rollout of vaccines; that continues to happen, and that needs to happen as it has been set out, but as we look at the effectiveness of vaccines, for certain, variants of concern matter as we assess vaccine effectiveness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Committee, we've just completed round three. We are almost at the two-hour mark. I wonder if it is the wish of the committee to continue to a fourth round. I'll ask people to raise their hands if they want a fourth round.

I see a number of hands going up.

Thank you to the witnesses. We will continue for at least one more round.

We will start the fourth round again with the Conservatives. I don't have who is on the list for the Conservatives.

Ms. Rempel Garner, would you advise us, please?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Sure, I guess I'll just go for it, Chair.

I guess today I'm fairly concerned about the data that is being used to inform decisions that are costing trillions of dollars to the Canadian economy, lives and mental health. I find it extremely shocking, and I understand that people are trying to do their best, but I find it shocking that people at these levels within the bureaucracy came to this meeting without being able to provide basic information on modelling that was released as early as this morning.

I'm just wondering if perhaps somebody in PHAC from one of these departments can explain to me how some decisions are being made.

Let's start with travel measures. How did the quarantine hotel decision come to be? How did this come into place? Was it PHAC advising the minister? Where did that discussion start?

[Cindy Evans]

When we look at the border measures, important conversations that we have occur at our special advisory committee where we have discussions with our chief public health officer as well as with the chief medical officers of health for all the provinces. An important aspect of that conversation has been the concerns with respect to importation of cases in Canada. Similarly—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What data—

[Cindy Evans]

Mr. Chair, if I may finish my answer, similarly, we look to other jurisdictions that are experiencing issues with the variants to see what measures they may have employed with success, and the U.K. certainly figured in the look that we had at other models.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

So what data was used to inform that specific decision? Did the U.K. provide evidence that measures they had put in place stopped the spread of the variants?

[Cindy Evans]

Mr. Chair, I will start off and then I may turn to a colleague with respect to what we're seeing in terms of the rates of positivity of imported cases.

Certainly we would look at the travellers coming in and the rates of positivity that we're seeing from those travellers, including where we may have associations with variants of concern, and that will impact the public health measures that we put in place and also what we learn and know about the timeline of—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I have limited time, and this isn't quite where I wanted to go.

I'm just wondering what data showed that quarantining in a quarantine hotel would have a better public health outcome than quarantining at somebody's house.

[Cindy Evans]

As I mentioned, one of the important things is taking a multi-layered approach in our public health measures and having effective quarantine measures, particularly at the front end where the infectious period is developing, which is an important aspect of that—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Perfect. What data was used to inform that comment or that talking point, and specifically that quarantining at a hotel was better than quarantining at somebody's house?

[Cindy Evans]

As I've said, one of the key pieces of evidence for the Public Health Agency was with respect to our understanding of the rates of the variants that were happening, how we are aware of the rates of positivity of travellers who are coming into Canada, our conversations with our chief medical officers of health with respect to adherence to quarantine measures, and how we could put more robust measures in place to assist in reducing community spread, as a result, from linkage to travel.

Thank you.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Could you table with committee next week the data you used that showed quarantining at hotels would be more effective than quarantining at somebody's house?

Does that data exist?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Ms. Rempel Garner, I don't believe that was the witness's testimony.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

To the witness, through you, Mr. Chair, could they please table with committee the data they used that showed that quarantining at a hotel was more effective than quarantining at somebody's house?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Once again, I don't think the witness asserted that.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

But I'm asking that question. Can anybody at PHAC table data that shows that quarantining at a hotel is better, from a public health perspective, than quarantining at somebody's house?

[Cindy Evans]

I'm certainly happy to take that question back to the department and look for—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Can you table that with committee, through you, Chair?