THUNDER BAY – Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu says she will reach out to her provincial counterpart to help Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre in its bid to do in-house analysis of COVID-19 tests.
Hajdu said it’s a provincial matter, but it’s also a global issue, with challenges put in place to procure enough reagent material to allow the laboratory work to occur. Doing so locally would cut the turnaround time from four to six days to a matter of hours.
“As of right now, our understanding is the provinces have what they need to do the ramped up testing ... So I’ll make sure to flag it with (Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott) that Thunder Bay is missing that particular component of their ability to do more rapid testing.”
Hajdu’s main message to the Canadian public, and to her constituents, is to stay the course and trust the success of tight COVID-19 restrictions, which remain in place across the country.
While U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested he wants to reopen the U.S. economy by the beginning of May, Hajdu said it’s difficult sometimes to see the big picture, but it’s also why Ottawa has opened the vaults to help people and businesses affected by the provincially mandated lockdown of all non-essential businesses.
“We know that it’s difficult financially for everyone, including the Canadian economy. But we also know we don’t want to have to go through this again,” she said.
“We have to use science and the data about where this disease is going and the new tools we’re developing to actually have an exit strategy that protects the health of Canadians in terms of our capacity to test and to track and to contain and then manage those severe cases on the other end.”
Hajdu said it’s too soon, however, to place a timeline on when the restrictions should be lifted, acknowledging it’s the No. 1 question on many Canadians’ minds.
“Everybody wants to know when this will be over and certainly I think all governments want to know that as well,” Hajdu said.
“I spoke to my G7 counterparts this morning and this is top of mind for the world. In fact the World Health Organization has released some guidance for countries to follow as they develop their own plans. And it really is with the focus of protecting human health, but also trying to ensure that countries, and by default, provinces and territories, have the right tools in play so they can contain the virus.
“I think we have to get to a new normal that includes living with COVID.”
Hajdu said work continues in the hunt for a vaccine, including in Canada, but cautioned that viruses like this can take a long time to be contained.
Hajdu also agreed with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s assessment that the border with the United States should remain closed for “several weeks,” to non-essential traffic.
The United States has more than 667,000 cases and has recorded more than 33,900 deaths, by far the highest recorded totals around the world.
The health minister said opening any border will require a great deal of caution. Canada will have to build on its capacity to do tracking and tracing of COVID-19 first.
“Now that we have some positive momentum on the slowing down of new cases, I will also say we have not yet reached our peak, nor do we know necessarily how long it will take us to decline from that first steep wave,” Hajdu said, “which means we’re going to have to be very cautious on our borders and of course our land borders are no different.”
