Health Committee on Jan. 18th, 2022

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Okay.

I'll direct this final question to the same people, please. On what date will Canada revise the federally mandated quarantine-length recommendations to five days to align with the provinces and with the CDC?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

I alluded to this earlier. When we review the actual scientific base, the period of communicability for omicron is actually not that different from the other viruses. An individual who is infected, for example, is still capable of shedding the virus and communicating this even up to the 10 days. So it is a matter of the fact that risk tolerance has to be adjusted, because right now people are running out of critical infrastructure and health care providers. This is a difficult decision that the provinces have to make, so they've been making that adjustment.

Also, on the quarantine period as well, the incubation period for this particular variant could be shorter, so one might think that we could shorten the quarantine period. That can be discussed. However, at the border we're focusing on not just omicron. We're focusing on some other variant that might come along with different incubation periods and isolation periods. That must be taken into account as we look at our next phase in our border measures.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Tam, and thank you, Mr. Williams.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you very much, Doctors.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Sidhu, go ahead, please. You have five minutes.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Tam, 97.9% of the public service, with a mandate, has been fully vaccinated, as compared with 83% of the general public. Would you consider this as reasonable evidence that mandates are effective?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Yes. Of course, I'm not in charge of the public service vaccine mandates, but I think those are the facts. I know that within the Public Health Agency, we were at about 92%, which is great. Public servants have really stepped up. That's gone up, I think, to close to 99% or thereabouts. Those are just the facts as they are laid out.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Dr. Tam.

Mr. Thompson, your department worked tirelessly over the last two years to ensure that Canadians had access to PPE, especially N95 masks. Do you know approximately how many items of PPE have been delivered to Canada? How are you planning for any future need for N95 masks, gloves and so on? Can you comment on that?

[Paul Thompson]

There's been an extensive effort on both overall procurement of PPE as well as standing up domestic production, as was mentioned earlier. One area of success in terms of domestic production is with respect to N95 masks. The production level domestically is now in excess of four million per month. We have already taken delivery of over 50 million domestically produced N95 masks, and have contracts for an overall 190 million.

That's one area where domestic production is really stepping up to be an increasing portion of the overall procurement going forward. As has been mentioned, there are other domestic providers in these other spaces. Artron, for example, is a Burnaby-based company that is providing rapid tests.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

Dr. Kochhar, as we know, as COVID-19 continues to evolve, Canada has one of the best researchers in the world. Can you update this committee on COVID-19 research? How many funds are we allocating for COVID-19 research?

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

The amount of money that we have allocated to COVID research has been divided into a multitude of different parts. This includes the core COVID pandemic research, which is with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

There is a part that we have encouraged academia and others to come in on and provide more information and research, which continues to happen in the different research and academic settings.

The third part is working with the National Microbiology Laboratory in the Public Health Agency and all of the other partners, so that we can get information that allows us to see how these variants of concern evolve and what it means for us in terms of preparedness for a future pandemic.

I would not have a precise number, because these are a few of the different parts, but I can certainly come back and provide that remittance number as requested.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Kochhar.

The next question is for Dr. Lucas. Health care workers have been working very hard to protect Canadians. Unfortunately, our health care heroes also face harassment and abuse, which is unacceptable.

Can you tell us what we are doing to protect our health care workers during this difficult time?

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

We recognize the incredible contribution that health care workers have made and continue to make during the pandemic. The government took action to protect health care workers through amendments to the Criminal Code under what was called Bill C-3, which was passed prior to the holiday recess. This is an important step to ensure that they are free from intimidation and harassment to enable them to do the critical work that they do day in and day out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Lucas.

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu.

Next we are going to Mr. Thériault.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes, Mr. Thériault.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Doctor Tam, from a scientific point of view, if we went back to random PCR tests at borders and airports, in addition to rapid tests in numbers that would allow for results within a reasonable time frame, do you think that would pose a public health problem?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

The testing regime at the moment at the border, certainly for the unvaccinated, consists of a pre-arrival test and then day-one and day-eight tests. For the vaccinated, that's been shifting over time. Right now, non-U.S. individuals, or even vaccinated individuals, are getting tested because we're living through an uncertain time with the omicron variant and all of these need to be reevaluated.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

That was not the subject of my question, excuse me.

Here's my question: from a scientific point of view, if we went back to random PCR tests and added random rapid tests to get results within a reasonable time frame, do you think that would pose a public health problem?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Yes. It depends on your objective, because the mandatory random testing is structured to get a good sample from different parts of the world. That is primarily to look for surveillance purposes and to look for different variants of concern. For that, you need a sample that can be sent for molecular sequencing in order to diagnose variants, which rapid tests will not to do.

We should certainly examine policies going forward in terms of the objective of reducing importations by every traveller. That could potentially shift, depending on the domestic and international context, but for sequencing for variants, the samples have to go to PCR.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Do you have any figures on the percentage of people who tested negative when they left, but positive when they arrived? Is there a gap, a difference, between the two?

A traveller's test result may be negative when they leave, but positive when they return. Do we have any figures on this? Are there many travellers to whom this happens?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

What we have data on, of course, are the tests that we conduct on arrival. Because other countries conduct their tests pre-departure, it's not something we can collect.

What we're seeing is that these percentage positive shift—

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

A traveller must present a negative test result upon arrival in the country. Have many travellers tested positive on arrival when they were negative on departure?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Your speaking time is up.

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Yes. That has been shifting over time. When omicron arrived, the percentage of positive tests actually increased quite a bit. In the partially or non-vaccinated individual—both by land and air—that number is cumulative and was 7.2% in the last week we had the complete data for. From December 26 to January 1, it increased from 0.73% to 7%.

In the fully vaccinated, because this is an immune-evasive variant it still increased from 0.3% to 5.47%.

So even though these travellers have had pre-departure tests before they got on the plane, for example, they are still showing up positive on day one, and the unvaccinated individuals who were tested on the day eight tests are also showing positivity.

It does mean that when we can detect these travellers, then they can be isolated and reduce their ability to spread into the community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Tam.

Merci, Monsieur Thériault.

Next is Mr. Davies.

Go ahead, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Dr. Tam, will the protection offered by mRNA vaccine third dose boosters wane at a similar rate to that for second doses?