Thank you so much. Again, thank you for the invitation to chat today.
My name is Isaac Bogoch, and I'm an infectious diseases physician and scientist based out of the Toronto General Hospital and the University of Toronto. I sit on several provincial and federal COVID-19 committees and task forces.
Over the next few minutes, I'd like to focus on a few semi-related issues related to the pandemic response. I think it's important to frame our conversation within the current and the near-future Canadian context.
We're still embroiled in a pretty large third wave across most of the country. Provinces such as Nova Scotia and Alberta, unfortunately, have higher rates of infection than ever before, but other provinces are slowly turning the corner.
No matter what, we're far from where we need to be. With mass vaccination efforts expanding, I think it's fair to say that we're going to realize some significant benefits from this vaccination, much like other countries that are a few months ahead of us, like the United States, Israel and the U.K. We're just a couple of months behind them. With sound public health measures and ongoing vaccinations, we will likely be far better off in the near future than where we are right now.
With that in mind, I think it's important to focus on a couple of current and near-term issues, and to really start thinking about what our off-ramp looks like.
The first one is regarding border measures. Now, we know COVID-19 isn't going anywhere any time soon; it's going to be around for awhile. At least for the near future, I think it's reasonable to ensure that people travelling, and Canadians returning to Canada, demonstrate either evidence of COVID-19 vaccinations, or if people choose not to be vaccinated, they still must quarantine and show evidence of negative testing.
This virus poses a significant public health threat, and we know it disproportionately impacts our low-income and racialized neighbourhoods. Border measures like this won't be perfect, but they'll still reduce the importation of virus. Policies like this seem prudent for the near future. Longer-term strategies remain unclear.
Related to the border, I think it's also important to discuss vaccine passports. When I say “vaccine passports”, I'm referring to requiring evidence of vaccination to cross an international border. Regardless of what our personal views are of the virus or vaccinations, there's a growing list of countries globally that require proof of vaccination for COVID-19 to enter them. We should be proactive in ensuring that Canadians who choose to be vaccinated will have acceptable documentation of their vaccine status to enable international travel.
Another point is with regard to essential workers who cross the border. We know there are tens and tens of thousands of people crossing our borders daily, and many of them are essential workers, such as truck drivers bringing in vital goods to Canadians. They should have priority vaccinations. For example, we know there's a great program on the Manitoba-North Dakota border for vaccinating truck drivers. This program is exemplary, and we should see more of that.
I have a couple of other quick points.
With regard to airports, if we were going to shut down all non-essential travel to the country, the time to do it was over a year ago. The current measures are clearly not perfect, but they still buffer Canadians from importing a significant number of cases of COVID.
When we look at the current and projected pace of vaccination and the benefits afforded by vaccination, I think it's pretty clear that there are significant questions when we raise the utility and costs of further restricting already restricted travel versus the potential gains. We could also create safer travel by ensuring that those who enter the country are vaccinated and continue to quarantine, as mentioned above.
Lastly, to touch on the Emergencies Act, or other measures for federal intervention at the provincial level, a lot of this is easy to say, but I imagine it's much more challenging to operationalize. I don't think there's the capacity for the federal government to micromanage health care or public health at the provincial level, or even regional level. There would have to be very, very clear and prespecified divisions of labour to make this work effectively.
There are plenty of other COVID-19-related topics to discuss, but unfortunately I don't have a lot of time. I'd be happy to address any of these in the question period that follows.
Again, thank you for your time. I'm happy to chat.