Health Committee on Feb. 26th, 2021

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Dr. Drummond, Dr. Kapur is a fellow long-time emerg doctor who has moved on. I need to ask if you can answer this question in about your particular hospital, your particular ER. Was your emergency room, your hospital, prepared in the early months of the pandemic to be able to start looking after COVID patients, making all the changes you needed in order to do so?

As you know, the hospitals are under provincial jurisdiction. Health care is primarily a provincial jurisdiction. Did you get any assistance from the hospitals in coordinating a response and knowing where to go?

[Dr. Alan Drummond]

The short answer to that question is no. In the first wave, we were governed by media appearances on what was happening in northern Italy and New York City. Thankfully, we had a few weeks' time to prepare for this potential onslaught of the novel coronavirus.

We felt very much left to our own devices, I think, in terms of inadequate protective equipment; mixed messaging, which led to confusion amongst clinical staff; an insufficient number of negative-pressure rooms, which was mandated after the SARS pandemic and I guess we didn't learn; and our concern for ventilator and ICU capacity. Our association actually had to fill in the clinical gaps left by the educational void.

Thank God, I guess, emergency physicians, emergency nurses and paramedics on a good day are a very innovative bunch. I think they responded in an exceptional manner to the challenges that lay ahead.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski.

Mr. Thériault, the floor is yours for one minute.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Okay.

Dr. Tremblay, managing a pandemic in a public health context is practising medicine en masse. We have to make sure that the public sticks to the message and does not quit. Some advocate a uniform, centralized approach. Currently, the coordination is decentralized; it is different and varies from one coast to the other.

Which model do you prefer?

[Dr. Cécile Tremblay]

Yes, managing a pandemic requires a structure in which everyone speaks with the same voice. It takes a degree of centralization, but that does not exclude adapting to local realities. In fact, the marching orders cannot apply in the same way in a province with no cases of the virus as in another with a crisis.

So I believe we need a mixed model, but one with good central and coordinated management. Public health messages must be consistent. We must say generally the same thing, but then tailor the message to local realities.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

Mr. Davies, go ahead, please, for one minute.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Stewart, a recent study from a British university found that in light of the emergence of the B.1.1.7 variant, the only way for the U.K. to reach herd immunity K. would be to vaccinate almost everyone, including children, with the more effective Pfizer vaccine. They found that vaccinating the entire population with the AstraZeneca vaccine would only reduce the R0. Meanwhile, the Pfizer vaccine would require 82% of the population to be vaccinated to control the spread of the new variant.

Has the Public Health Agency of Canada conducted similar modelling for Canada?

[Iain Stewart]

First of all, I'm not aware of that study. We'll look for that with great interest. Thank you for that.

Secondly, we have 70 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna, which are sufficient for the needs of Canadians. It will become a question of vaccine hesitancy, at a certain point, as to whether we can vaccinate the number of people we need to with those two products.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Do we need to access the Covax fund if we have 70 million Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?

[Iain Stewart]

The decision about whether or not to access the Covax fund is not in my remit, so I might not be the best person to speak to it.

Our overall strategy has been to have multiple vaccine candidates in order to try to bring forward vaccines earlier so that we can complete the immunization program in a timely manner. AstraZeneca, whether through Covax or through our direct APA, is in fact a way to get more doses earlier, which I think Canadians are very anxious to have.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

This study was from the University of East Anglia, Mr. Stewart, if that helps.

[Iain Stewart]

It does. Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

To all our witnesses today, thank you for sharing your time, expertise and knowledge with us today.

Thank you to all of the members for a great meeting. I look forward to seeing you all next week.

With that, we are adjourned.