Health Committee on March 30th, 2022

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

At the same time, in December 2021, the House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion calling on the federal government to supply Canadian-made PPE in the parliamentary precinct and to the various federal departments, agencies and organizations by January 31, 2022.

At the time, Mr. Hunt, you said the following in response, “CAPPEM and its members across Canada wholeheartedly applaud yesterday's unanimous motion.”

Can you confirm that the federal government successfully implemented this motion by the January 31 deadline and indeed to date?

[Barry Hunt]

We received a letter from the House Speaker to confirm that they would comply by January 31, and I believe that has happened. We received a letter from the Minister of Procurement, or a designate of the minister, to suggest that they would be following the rules for federal departments and organizations.

We were very encouraged by that. However, it was also followed with a comment that they no longer need PPE, or have a demand or desire for PPE, but that if they do some time in the future, they will consider buying Canadian PPE.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I think in your testimony, if I have it correct, Mr. Hunt, you said that Canada's eight-week supply of N95s will be gone in eight days.

Can you explain that for us, Mr. Hunt? How can an eight-week supply be gone in eight days?

[Barry Hunt]

We currently supply N95s to health care, and to various federal, provincial and territorial governments through central procurement.

If we have a particularly lethal variant that comes out and we want to protect our entire populace—38 million Canadians—that's an almost hundredfold increase in the amount of PPE we would need, or N95 respirators that we would need, and there is no capacity currently to be able to support something like that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Hunt and Mr. Davies.

You got a lot in during those six minutes, Mr. Davies.

Next we're going to go to Dr. Ellis, please, for five minutes.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, of course, to the witnesses for being here.

I'd like to start with Dr. Bogoch.

We've talked a bit about increasing mask use and things like that. Are there particular benchmarks or metrics that you think we would need to make Canadians aware of in order to increase their mask use?

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

I'd have to think about that a little more closely, but I think that would be very easy to come up with. When there is x burden of COVID in a particular community, it could be recommended to wear a mask at a certain point. Of course, mask-wearing would be voluntary at any point, but that's something that certainly could be modelled and discussed with an interdisciplinary team.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

This is perhaps a big ask, Dr. Bogoch, but is that something you would be willing to do a one-pager on for this committee?

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

Yes, I would be happy to help on that front.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

With the change in the way we do testing these days, certainly originally the way we talked about restrictions, lockdowns, mandates, etc. was really related to case counts, Dr. Bogoch.

Is it fair to say now that we should be more focused on hospitalizations than on case counts, especially now when we're not doing as much testing and, certainly, we're doing no contact tracing?

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

Yes. I would agree with that. I think we have to look at other metrics because we don't have that accurate a daily case count.

Hospitalizations, unfortunately, and deaths are a delayed metric. We should be acting long before we see a rise in hospitalizations and deaths. I think waste water surveillance is a wonderful surveillance tool we can use. It has a low impact. You can get a good view across the country of what the COVID situation is like, and we should be acting on those signals in addition to the other metrics we have.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Excellent.

When we talk about using rapid tests, especially on asymptomatic people, we realize that these tests are really not very sensitive at all. Does it really make any sense to continue to push using rapid tests on asymptomatic folks?

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

I think they are excellent tests when they are used in the appropriate context. They answer the question “Am I transmissible to other people right now, yes or no?”, which is slightly different from the question “Am I infected with COVID, yes or no?” Some people test negative, but they end up being positive for COVID, but the real issue is that while their test is negative, they might in fact be positive but are just not at risk, or at much lower risk of transmitting to other people at that time.

So there's still a time and a place for rapid tests. Many people might continue to use those before they have, for example, an indoor gathering or perhaps before meeting with a more vulnerable individual.

I really think we should have tremendous access to these in the community setting so people can choose and have the option to use these tests in the right places, but, of course, we need some significant access and public education on when and how to use these tests.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Okay. That makes better sense. Thank you.

Something else you talked about was using behavioural scientists and communication experts. I think you tied that into vaccine hesitancy.

Is that the idea you had around that, Doctor?

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

Yes. I actually think of it much more broadly. We want people to make smart decisions for themselves and data-driven decisions for themselves.

The data is changing with time. Policy is going to change with time, and we have to keep 38 million people up to date and in touch with doing the right thing. There might be a time to go get a vaccine. There might be a place to go get a therapeutic. There might be a time to put your mask back on. We have to reach all 38 million of us to inform people in a proper manner, and also have the public trust and public buy-in to do that when it's the right time. That really does involve having solid communication experts and social scientists as part of the team.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Suffice it to say—and there's no reason to respond, Doctor—that name-calling is probably not part of that buy-in in building public trust. Is that fair?

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

Yes. I agree in full.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you.

Mr. Hunt, I have a question around the stockpile, on N95s in particular. Maybe you can inform the committee, sir, what the shelf life of an N95 mask is, unused that is.

[Barry Hunt]

They are rated by each manufacturer. Usually it's a minimum of two years and typically up to five years.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Is the burden for storage significant? Obviously, we need a fairly good-sized facility to do that. Does that exist in Canada?

[Barry Hunt]

I don't believe that just putting respirators [Technical Difficulty—Editor] suggested a first in-first out rotating inventory system, a vendor-managed system, similar to what is done in pharmaceutical industries, for example.

For example, if Canadian manufacturers were supplying to the health care industry so there was a constant in and out of inventory, we could actually hold inventory in each of our plants from 20 or 30 companies across the country and would have decentralized warehousing and local distribution and a constant fresh supply of PPE at all times. I really think that's probably the best path for us going forward.

Putting them in a warehouse where they are forgotten is probably the worst thing we could do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Hunt and Dr. Ellis.

Next—

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

My wife is a pharmacist. I want to say how much I love all pharmacists.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We'll go back to Mr. Jowhari for five minutes.

Go ahead, please.