The latest on the coronavirus outbreak for Sept. 8

The GPHIN flagged a new pneumonia-like virus in Wuhan, China, at the end of December 2019. The Globe and Mail has reported on internal concerns about the efficacy of the reporting system after changes made in 2018 and 2019 shifted the network’s focus away from monitoring global health trends to a more domestic role. CBC News also reported in April on concerns about the network’s alerts not being as widely disseminated as they had been during past health crises. “We were concerned to learn of reports that GPHIN analysts felt that they were not able to proceed with their important work, and that some scientists didn’t feel fully empowered,” a spokesperson for Hajdu said in a statement. “That’s why we have ordered a full and expeditious independent review of GPHIN, led by professionals and experts from outside of the Public Health Agency of Canada.”

Asked Tuesday if she was aware of some scientists claiming their warnings about the threat of COVID-19 were not properly heeded by senior public health leaders, Dr. Theresa Tam said she would wait for the results of the review before commenting. Canada’s chief public health officer said she did read the GPHIN reports in early January about the Wuhan outbreak cluster and insisted the system continues to function, despite some changes to its mandate last year. “We will address any findings and recommendations accordingly,” Tam told reporters. “Preempting what their findings are isn’t very helpful at this time. I think the purpose should be that we strengthen early warning globally and whatever Canada can contribute to that will be very helpful.”

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, who was tapped by new leader Erin O’Toole this morning to serve as the party’s health critic, said the Liberal government has overseen a poor pandemic response. “The reality is that Justin Trudeau’s costly and slow and dangerous initial response to COVID-19 can be measured in human lives lost, billions of dollars of debt and millions of jobs lost in this country, and he needs to be held to account for that,” she said in a video statement on her Facebook page. “To Justin Trudeau’s staffers … there’s no more free ride, guys, you better get ready with a plan. Enough is enough.” The federal government has been accused in some circles of being too slow to respond to the pandemic over everything from border closures to procurement.

The medical unit of the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command briefed Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan about the COVID-19 crisis on Jan. 17 — but it took another 10 days for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to convene his incident response group to plan Canada’s pandemic response. As reported previously by CBC, based on documents presented before the House of Commons health committee, much of the government’s focus in the early days of the pandemic was on repatriating Canadians from Hubei province and cruise ships while international borders remained open with minimal screening. The federal purchasing department was also slow to sign contracts for personal protective equipment.

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IN BRIEF

Ontario puts ‘pause’ on further loosening of public health measures as COVID-19 numbers rise

Ontario’s government is putting a “pause” of four weeks on any further loosening of public health measures in Ontario, Health Minister Christine Elliott said Tuesday. The province reported 185 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, as well as 190 on Monday — the most on any single day since July 24. At the province’s daily news conference, Elliott said Ontario’s “latest trends and numbers have raised some concern.” She said the moves being put on hold include expanding the size of the province’s social circles and the number of people allowed at sporting events.

Premier Doug Ford said there are “three regions that are concerning to me” — Brampton, Ottawa and Toronto — and pleaded with people to avoid large gatherings. When asked if he would consider a rollback to the second stage of the province’s reopening plan, Ford said he would consult with Ontario’s health experts. “We aren’t there yet,” Ford said, but he also noted if infection levels continue to rise, that could change.

The five-day rolling average of new daily cases in Ontario, a measure that smoothes peak and valleys in data, has been trending steadily upward since a low Aug. 9. Speaking to reporters this morning, Toronto Mayor John Tory drew attention to the troubling number of cases in younger people. Of the 968 cases confirmed in the city in the last month, 65 per cent were people under the age of 40. Meanwhile, in Ottawa https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/vera-etches-back-to-school-1.5715040, about 200 students and staff at five French Catholic schools have been told to self-isolate because of possible exposure to COVID-19 aboard school buses.

Read more about Ontario’s situation here.

3 university students share their experiences as school returns

As thousands of young Canadians embark on their post-secondary education this fall, the coronavirus pandemic is shaping each step of their journey. Three students shared with CBC’s Jessica Wong how university life is unfolding in these unusual times.

Hana Mitsui Hotz, a kinesiology student at McGill University in Montreal, said she felt overwhelmed on the first night in her solo, hotel-style room. New measures — including strict occupancy limits in common rooms and virtual frosh activities — are designed to curb in-person gatherings, and left her worried about how she’d meet peers. “The reason I’m here is because I wanted to meet people. Once I had arrived and I kind of saw the layout, I was really worried whether or not I would be able to,” said the student from Toronto. Her stress level has dropped since because of a mix of online and in-person interactions, including some Zoom yoga. “It’s really weird, but it’s working out.”

Anthony Russell hasn’t even left home yet. The pandemic has meant a delayed departure that the first-year student at the University of Alberta never imagined. Russell is taking remote classes at his Calgary home for a new law, crime and justice studies program based at his school’s Augustana campus in Camrose. “I will be on campus eventually,” he said. “I’ve been in the house with my parents and all my siblings my whole life…. I’m just really excited for when that time comes and they say, ‘OK, everybody can come and stay on campus.'” Seated in his family’s sunlit garage — where he attends Zoom classes several times a week, completes daily assignments and also creates vibrant art pieces — he said he feels as though he’s finding his groove.

Meanwhile, Catherine Boisvert is eager to be back at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S. But to re-enter what’s now the country’s Atlantic Canada bubble, she had to first manage a tricky quarantine juggling act in her off-campus apartment shared with two roommates. When Boisvert returned from Quebec in early August, one roommate left to stay with family elsewhere in Nova Scotia to allow her to self-isolate for 14 days. She subsequently decamped to her boyfriend’s flat to allow a third roommate — returning from British Columbia — to quarantine. The pandemic is “a crazy situation…. We have to bend a little bit and be a little bit flexible to help our friends,’ said Boisvert, who’s starting her fourth year of a joint honours program in math and physics.

Read more about their university experiences here.

Liberals extend commercial rent relief for the last time

The federal government is extending its commercial rent relief program one last time, The Canadian Press reports. The Liberals say the program that aims to help small businesses with their rent or lease costs will be extended for this month, unveiling the details one week after rent was due. In a release, the government says the one-month lifeline is a “final extension” for the program and that officials are looking at other options to help small businesses.

The rent-relief program provides forgivable loans that cover half of rent for eligible small businesses, and also requires landlords to waive a further one-quarter of what they’d otherwise be owed. Property owners have to apply for the help, but take-up has lagged behind expectations and spending is projected to fall far short of the nearly $3 billion the Liberals have budgeted.

The government says that as of the start of this week, the program had provided more than $1.32 billion in aid to more than 106,000 small-business tenants.

Read more about the political response to COVID-19 here.

Stay informed with the latest COVID-19 data

THE SCIENCE

Students using social media to cope with COVID-19, Carleton University researcher says 

University students are increasingly turning to social media as a way to cope with social isolation and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Carleton University researcher tells CBC News. Prof. Kim Hellemans, chair of the university’s neuroscience department, has been studying how the pandemic has influenced cannabis use, stress and mental health among students taking university courses. She told CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning that survey results have shown a clear trend of higher scores on a problematic social media scale — a psychological tool based on a similar scale used to measure substance use.

Hellemans had already been studying student mental health at the beginning of the year, surveying students to learn more about the relationship between mental health, cannabis use and academic outcomes. When the pandemic hit Canada, she added new questionnaires specific to the pandemic. So far, her team has conducted three phases of the study with different sets of participants. Her survey asks students whether they use social media to combat negative feelings or moods, if they neglect friends and other social activities and if they’re preoccupied when they’re not using it.

In research conducted from May to June, 81 per cent of participants said they’d been using social media as a coping mechanism more since the pandemic began. Hellemans said female students were more likely to report problematic social media use than male students, partly because women are typically more active users and are more likely to want to feel connected to their friend groups.

AND FINALLY…

5 stages of COVID-19: Canadian painter goes from pandemic denial to appreciating its heroes 

Tim Okamura was weak from COVID-19 and grieving the death of a cousin to the disease when the hospital across the street began bringing in the body trucks. Only a few weeks earlier, the Canadian contemporary artist from Sherwood Park, Alta., had been dismissive of the masked fellow travellers on a flight from Germany and of the masked and gloved fellow New Yorkers when he returned to his Brooklyn home. By March, the coronavirus in New York was spreading rapidly and Okamura’s denial gave way to the realization that he had almost assuredly contracted the disease. He’d had the chills, body aches, headaches, fatigue, brain fog and the bizarre loss of his sense of smell. And, if all that wasn’t enough, there were the body trucks. “That was right outside my window. The first truck got set up and that weekend I saw them wheeling bodies out,” he told CBC News.

A Canadian living in the United States for the last three decades, Okamura says he still meets naysayers and conspiracy theorists among his own social circle. “When you’re confronted with people who think it’s all a conspiracy, it’s a bit frustrating. You have to kind of work through the steps of logically kind of deciphering what they’re saying, being patient with it,” he said. “It’s like the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining and then depression and then finally acceptance,” he said. “You can see those stages happening with people, too.”

Okamura is known for his paintings that often depict Black Americans with themes of social justice, representation and racial equality. Time Magazine used his painting of Toni Morrison in March’s 100 Women of the Year project. The pandemic has opened up a new artistic door, with a series of paintings he has planned called Health Care Heroes, which will include portraits of nurses from COVID-19 units in Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta and a portrait of three emergency doctors in New York City. “I have been deeply affected by the pandemic on many levels, and wanted to show my appreciation for the heroic work of the doctors and nurses,” he said.

Read more about Okamura’s project here.

Find out more about COVID-19

Still looking for more information on the pandemic? Read more about COVID-19’s impact on life in Canada, or reach out to us at covid@cbc.ca if you have any questions.

If you have symptoms of the illness caused by the coronavirus, here’s what to do in your part of the country.

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