Never was that old adage more true: "Time Is Of The Essence"

"Viral evolution can't be bargained with."

"[The variant is a] 2021 nightmare, [and there are only two ways out of the nightmare]. The growth rate is going up by 40 to 70 percent and the best point estimate is in the low 50s. By god, do I hope that's wrong."

"Although we slammed the door as quickly as we knew [ban on passenger flight from the U.K. in December]; it was already too late. The variant is within Canada and circulating in the community, which means it is 100 percent, positively inevitable that it will displace the existing virus."

"It of course is going to, over time, displace strains that are less efficient at transmitting. That's just how viral ecology works."

"If you believe, as I think nearly all of us would, that more sick and more dead is simply not an option, then something has to change. There is no choice."

Amir Attaran, biologist, professor of law and medicine, University of Ottawa

"Time is of the essence for us."

"Maybe we won't see as rapid dissemination. But certainly in places with higher population density, like Ontario and Quebec and Vancouver and B.C.[s Lower Mainland, there is that concern."

Jason Kinrachuk, virologist, University of Manitoba

"We don't know exactly how prevalent [the variant is in Canada, yet]."

"We have to look at the U .K. data and certainly start to think, what is our plan to try and reduce transmission and what does this potentially mean for us in the coming months?"

Dr.Catalina Lopez-Corres, executive director, Canadian COVID Genomics Network

A new study from Imperial College London has found that the coronavirus variant first found in the U.K. is much more transmissible than the original strain   CBC

The new SARS-CoV-2 mutated virus that emerged in the United Kingdom, labelled B.1.1.7. has swept through Britain, bringing the country to a state of heightened emergency measures. The new strain, judged to be up to 70% more infectious than the original COVID-19 virus is now spreading worldwide. Cases are being reported in dozens of countries, the United States, Denmark, Netherlands, India, Turkey, Vietnam and Germany among them. And in Canada. Epidemiologists might say it was inevitable. By the time a new mutated strain is discovered and an alarm raised, the mutant variant would have travelled with anyone hosting it who flies to other destinations for business or leisure.

Internationally, where afflicted nations find themselves in the midst of a second wave of the novel coronavirus, the worst possible news they might have is that though their case numbers are already reaching new heights, they will shortly be surpassed by a more contagious new strain of the virus. There are several concerns above and apart from its guaranteed higher contagion rate; whether the mutant represents a more dangerous replication of the virus, and whether it may be resistant -- and to what degree -- to the vaccines now being rolled out.

 

Those cases emerging in Canada have been tied to returning Canadians who have travelled outside the country, coming home to British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec. And then, there is in the background the spectre of yet another new mutant strain emerging in South Africa which some believe to be even more contagious than the U.K. strain. In neither case, does it appear that the mutant strains are more lethal than the original. What is of conceern, however, is that the U.K. variant has 17 mutational changes.

 

And it is in the spike protein that the mutation causes thoughtful concern for its capacity to catch and enter human cells through the medium of the spikes ,,, thus enhancing its communicability. So far, though the South African variety carries multiple spike mutations as well, there has as yet been no association with more serious symptoms arising from its infectious capabilities. According to the World Health Organization, its officials judge it not to be more contagious than the U.K.'s version flooding Britain, contradicting earlier reports.

 

"Genetic diversity of this lineage has changed in a manner consistent with exponential growth", an Imperial College London team of researchers gave warning in a pre-print of the U.K. version first identified in September. Its very transmissibility increases the basic reproduction number by between 0.4 and 0.7; representing the average number of people an infected individual infects. At the present time, Canada's reproduction number hovers at 1.0, a rate of transmission that rings alarm bells. Cases will not diminish until that number falls.

 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced this week a return to a COVID spring-era lockdown to last to mid-February in Britain while warning the coming weeks will be the "hardest yet". The U.K. variant took no more than three months to overtake the earlier and original circulating strain in the U.K. With double Canada's population living on a significantly more contained landmass, the kind of distancing potential that exists in Canada would prove to be more difficult to attain in Britain. 

Only days ago British authorities announced approval of two home-grown vaccines to be rolled out immediately for injections. The Oxford-Astra-Zeneca vaccine, and the Johnson & Johnson. The country is set to move speedily into an overall vaccination program, even as it struggles with the impact of a wildly reproducing and infectious outbreak. Canada has contracted with both of these pharmaceutical companies as well, but it has proven a laggard at using this defensive mechanism.

 

Canada does possess two early emergency approved vaccines, the Pfizer and Moderna products. Unlike the U.K. and the United States, the rollout of the vaccines in Canada has been agonizingly slow. The provinces have so far used a mere one-quarter of the vaccines assigned to them in reflection of their population numbers. Most of the vaccines sit as-yet-unused, in freezers; coordination of vaccinations and dispensing sites are still in the planning stages. A conjunction of circumstances that cry out for Canadians to maintain vigilance, observe the masking, hygiene and distancing rules and avoid travel.

"As far as we know, we're not expecting that there are large numbers of contacts related to these cases [nine confirmed cases of the U.K. variant in Canada]. But there is always a risk of a virus that can transmit in all sorts of hidden ways to accelerate in different places."

"You've really got to double down on your efforts with a more transmissible virus."

"[Should contagion accelerate], it means that there will be more public health measures that might be needed. It would become a difficult situation."

Dr.Theresa Tam, Canadian Chief Public Health Officer

Beijing's Campaign to Make Friends and Influence People as it Aspires to Commanding Heights

"A long-standing trope in the U.S. debate on that subject is that China itself doesn’t know what it seeks to achieve, that its leaders haven’t yet worked out how far Beijing’s influence should reach. Yet there is a growing body of evidence, assembled and interpreted by talented China experts, that the Chinese government is indeed aiming for global power and perhaps global primacy over the next generation — that it seeks to upend the American-led international system and create at least a competing, quasi-world order of its own."

"It doesn’t take unparalleled powers of deduction to reach this conclusion. Top Chinese officials and members of the country’s foreign policy community are becoming increasingly explicit in saying so themselves."

"President Xi Jinping more than hinted at this goal in his landmark address to the 19th Party Congress in October 2017. That speech represents one of the most authoritative statements of the party’s policy and aims; it reflects Xi’s understanding of what China has accomplished under communist rule and how it must advance in the future."

"Xi declared that China “has stood up, grown rich, and is becoming strong,” and that it was now “blazing a new trail for other developing countries” and offering “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.” By 2049, Xi promised, China would “become a global leader in terms of composite national strength and international influence” and would build a “stable international order” in which China’s “national rejuvenation” could be fully achieved.

This was the statement of a leader who sees his country not just participating in global affairs but setting the terms, and it testifies to two core themes in China’s foreign policy discourse."

Hai Brands, Bloomberg

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed that by 2049, China would “become a global leader in terms of composite national strength and international influence.” | BLOOMBERG

"Out of the bottom of my heart: good riddance", stated Geng Shuang, Beijing's deputy ambassador to the United Nations after Germany's ambassador Christoph Heusgen's two-year tenure on the 15-member revolving Security Council was coming to an end and he appealed to China to release the two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, held the past two years on spurious charges of 'espionage'. It would be a goodwill gesture, he recommended. Earning him the open spite and abuse of the Chinese diplomat.

"Let me end my tenure on the Security Council by appealing to my Chinese colleagues to ask Beijing for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Christmas is the right moment for such a gesture", offered Ambassador Heusgen on December 22nd at the council session. "I wish to say something out of the bottom of my heart: Good riddance, Ambassador Heusgen", responded Ambassador Geng. "I am hoping that the council in your absence in the year 2021 will be in a better position to fulfill the responsibilities…for maintaining international peace and security."

A man holds a sign bearing photographs of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who have been detained in China for two years, outside B.C. Supreme Court where Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was attending a hearing, in Vancouver, on Jan. 21, 2020. Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press/File

This is a China the rest of the world doesn't quite recognize by its past activities; a China promoting peace and security for the world order. And in its heartfelt efforts to do just that it used the festive season in its own inimitable way by placing a dozen people on trial who had been arrested in Hong Kong; their criminal act was an attempt to flee Beijing's clamp-down on democratic freedoms in Hong Kong, hoping to escape the new security laws that would brand them criminals by committing a criminal act; escaping to Taiwan.

The trial for the dozen men was held in secret then adjourned with no word of its outcome. China responded when an American official criticized the event by demanding he "immediately stop interfering in China's internal affairs". It is no secret that President Xi Jinping intends to elevate China's stature in the international community, and with it his own through the personality cult he has assiduously groomed China to accept. The reasoning behind China's Communist Party's decision to forge full steam ahead on its charm offensive to attain that end, is certainly unique to China.

What other country besides the one singular geography holding the largest population in the world -- that has engineered itself skillfully into the position of a global trade and manufacturing behemoth, one that belligerently views its neighbours as obstructing its air, land and sea sovereign claims over both international and disputed areas, and which has launched an immense global investment and infrastructure campaign of dependency to widen its reach and influence -- would engage those it sees as world leaders and competitors with contemptful outpourings of scorn?

 

Beijing appears to have instructed its diplomats abroad to aggressively pursue China's interests against any and all criticism of its modus operandi. Its decades-long covert plan to dispatch agents infiltrating the political arenas, academic circles, businesses and manufacturing of competitive nations to acquire trade and military secrets has given it huge advantages over what it sees as its adversaries. China stretches its octopus arms through its mammoth communications and technology corporations investing in other countries and integrating into their networks.

 

And then came SARS-CoV-2, a virus that erupted out of the blue -- or an escapee from a biotechnology laboratory in Wuhan -- that flooded that city, crept through China, then swept onward to infest the world community. Triggering the CCP's propaganda mechanism into full swing, denying responsibility for COVID-19, hazarding it entered through a U.S. plot, that it emerged from Italy, entered China through imported frozen foods. A dictatorship experiences few problems, little resistance in clamping its population into a virtual concentration camp, starving out the virus.

But if a virus could conceivably be steered and channeled, COVID took it under advisement to strike China's number one competitor as the world's sole global powerhouse, hitting its target and thus far killing 330,000 Americans even as in China things have returned to a state of normalcy. And Beijing boasts its success in taming the virus, exiling it elsewhere around the world, ravaging continents. While Beijing gets on with its charm offensive in Australia. Which exports enormous shipments of coal to China under normal conditions, but is now blackballed by Beijing, stamped 'paid' for Australia's urging of an international commission of enquiry into COVID's China connections.

China's beneficence to its Uyghur Muslim population, extending its hand in benevolence, with free courses on how to eject Islam from their lives and live instead with Chinese Communal benefits due to all in harmonious relations, leaving splittism in the dust bin of failed aspirations, cannot help but endear China to the Turkic Uyghurs. Tibetans and Mongolians are similarly grateful to Beijing's attention in ensuring they become model Chinese citizens, abandoning unneeded culture and language for the benefits of living as Chinese in thrall to happy contentment

Threats to Taiwan and India, Vietnam and Japan? A matter of twisted perception; no threats exist; they must simply accede to Beijing's expectations of them, simple enough. Unity and respect, that's all that Beijing expects from its neighbours, who must refrain from challenging Beijing's rightful claims of sovereignty over land, sea and air. And all would be sweetness and light. Except that there are some problems with President Xi's masterpiece plan, the "belt-and-road" scheme benefiting developing countries from Africa to Europe to the Middle East.

A bit of backfire from SARS-CoV-2. Where the very countries that face mountainous debts to Beijing for its generous loans in massive infrastructure programs are now struggling to keep their heads above COVID-inspired tsunamis of financial defaults from a collapsing economic situation. Low-income countries strapped for cash are beginning to default over their mega-projects leaving China with a bit of a financial problem. "It's undeniable that the program has run into deep trouble, along with many of the associated loans", noted Bloomberg News.

Workers take down a Belt and Road Forum panel outside the venue of the forum in Beijing.  Greg Baker | AFP | Getty Images

COVID Hospitalization in Canada's Capital

Vanessa Large. Photo Tony Caldwell/Postmedia

"It was never peaceful. Everyone was very anxious. They all knew. The patients weren't naive, they knew they had COVID, and they knew coming in what was on the TV. 'OK, I'm not doing well and you're talking about ICU. Is this it? Is this where we're going'?"

"And unfortunately, the only answer was, 'We're going to ICU. They're going to do what they can to help  you and we're going to update your family."

"And sometimes we saw patients come back, and sometimes we didn't."

Vanessa Large, registered nurse, COVID Unit, The Ottawa Hospital

Dr.Samantha Halman . Photo Tony Caldwell/Postmedia

"They asked me that if it came to that and it looked like it was going to happen, the only thing they wanted from me was to make sure they weren't suffering, and I promised them we could do that."

"[Every  COVID death is different but all are memorable], We worry about the patients. We worry about them when we go home. We think about them."

"I've seen a lot of people die, and I have to be comfortable with death because it's part of my regular life. But the last six months have really struck with me. These are hard deaths. They're psychologically very hard."

"In many cases, outside this pandemic, I'm usually able to make sure the family is there and they're not alone and people are prepared. But with this, their family member wasn't sick two months ago. They didn't have cancer. They didn't have a terminal illness. They were playing hockey or they were out with their grandkids and all of a sudden, they're gone. And that's really hard to accept."

"Everybody thinks about the classic fever/shortness of breath/cough, but we've had quite a few people who have presented with gastrointestinal symptoms, like profound loss of appetite, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting. We've had quite a number of people presenting with near-fainting spells. We've ha people who have presented with strokes. We've had people come in with blood clots or pulmonary embolisms in their lungs or their legs. In older people, especially people from institutions, we've had people who have come in confused or with delirium."

"Anyone who comes in and we're thinking there's something that's off, all of these people are getting COVID swabbed. There's no real environment where you feel completely safe, because it can present as anything."

Dr.Samantha Halman, general internal medicine specialist, The Ottawa Hospital

The world has faced quite an upheaval in the last nine months; no less so the capital city of Canada and its leading hospital. The public is familiar with the results of announced lockdowns; social isolation, the urging of the medical community to remain alert and distanced, to wear masks and avoid crowds. And adjust to the social changes of lockdown where only those businesses considered crucial may remain open, and other shuttered temporarily -- or permanently. Children being home-schooled or subjected to remote-learning. People working from home, remotely. A sea change from normalcy.

And of course, for those not themselves affected by contracting COVID, or having someone in the family infected, there is the news and the daily case counts to keep the public informed and alert to the ongoing pandemic now resurgent, with a vengeance. From a toehold to a foothold to a complete invasion. And there are the hospital admissions, the transfer to intensive care, the deaths and the recoveries. Hospitals employ a variety of methods; supplemental oxygen, steroids and painkillers. And a lot of attentively quiet listening.

In Ottawa, Canada's capital alone, over 9,000 people were infected by COVID-19, more than half of those infected under age 40. But of the majority of the close to 400 deaths that ensued it was the elderly that carried the brunt of the living sacrifice. Three quarters of those in the elderly category were in their 80s and over, many suffering comorbidities exacerbating prognosis and ultimately outcome. It is interesting to compare illnesses and their death rates. According to Ottawa Public Health's mortality data from the most recent year where data is available, 2015, death from COVID ranks fourth.

Among the leading cause of death, ischemic heart disease led the peak death rate at 800, with dementia and Alzheimer's following at 662 deaths, lung cancer 413, and COVID following in fourth place of leading death counts in the city. Flu and pneumonia accounted for 155 death-responsibility. Although death from any cause is lamentable at the very least, heartbreaking at best for the families involved, COVID deaths prove to be quick and brutal. Someone will decide to go to hospital to find out what it is that appears off kilter with them. 

That shortness of breath is particularly worrisome and horribly uncomfortable. Two hours following admission supplemental oxygen is being administered, and the rate is progressively increased reflecting a steadily worsening condition. Breathing becomes rapid and shallow with 30 to 40 or more breaths per minute, yet failing to provide adequate oxygen. A switch follows from supplemental to high flow oxygen with the use of a breathing machine pumping pure oxygen. 

"Things are spinning out of control very quickly" says Dr.Halman. "It's very scary for patients because you go from coming in and being on two litres of oxygen to suddenly having 20 people thinking about how we're going to transport you safely across the hospital and down to the ICU and talking about putting you on a breathing machine when ten hours ago you weren't even short of breath." About one in five patients hospitalized with COVID required treatment in an intensive care unit, while the remainder had care in a regular COVID unit, many of whom improved to return home.

New development used blood thinners in treatment in reflection of some COVID patients becoming prone to blood clots. Decadron or dexamethasone representing a cortiscosteroid reducing inflammation, and antibiotics are also routinely administered. A dozen trial therapies are being tried out at the hospital including antiviral drugs like remdesivir and convalescent plasma. Patients are turned to lie on their stomachs to  help clear lungs. The most serious patients are placed on ventilators where an endotracheal tube running from mouth to lungs is inserted, the ventilator breathing for the patient.

Dr.Kwadwo Kyeremanteng (Kwadwo Kyeremanteng) jpg

"It's what we call invasive ventilation. It's uncomfortable, you need to be knocked out for it on sedatives and pain medications to tolerate it. People don't realize how difficult it is to be an ICU patient. We have a lot of PTSD, we have a lot of depression after with patients who survive it", explained Dr.Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, intensive care physician at The Ottawa Hospital. "The saddest part is seeing people die alone, which no one deserves, period. When you see someone who has been a good person and lived a good life and cared for their family, and they're dying surrounded by strangers in what look like haz-mat suits, everyone deserves better."

The Rigour of Twitter Diplomacy

"I'm disappointed that there hasn't been more on this [official, emphatic reaction from the government of Canada in response to Beijing's human rights abuses in cracking down on journalists exploring the Chinese Communist Party's secrecy during the initial stages of the emerging novel coronavirus]."

"China does not respect other countries that are weak. And so to sit back quietly, meekly, is not an approach that will win us respect in Beijing."

Margaret McCuaig Johnston, formerly member, Canada-China Joint Committee on Science and Technology, former senior official, Department of Finance

"[The statement by Ottawa is] indicative of the extent to which the Chinese regime has been able to suppress any Canadian government standing for the rules-based international order."

Charles Burton, China expert, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Ottawa

"We really need to build on the expression of concern in that tweet and make it very clear how seriously we take this case."

"Zhang Zhan's case is one that Canada needs to rise to with real seriousness and urgency."

"What we have seen from Canada is absolutely not enough."

Alex Neve, former chair, Canadian Coalition of Human Rights in China

The former lawyer, citizen-journalist, 37, Zhang Zhan was detained in May  YouTube/Screenshot

Canada cannot depend on China to act within the boundaries of international law, but China can depend on Canada not to make too great a fuss in the international community over Beijing's human rights abuses. Despite that Canada prides itself on its rigorous support of human rights. Just not prepared to rock the boat where China is concerned. Trade and investment dependency can do that to the pride and dignity and principles of a country, leaving its government to look fairly sanctimonious about a subject reputedly dear to its heart.

 

China makes itself indispensable to weaker countries of the world, those just emerging from third world status with struggling economies, hoping time will give them their just due. And there is China, willing and eager to make gigantic investments in these countries from Europe to Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, to North America. Growing its indispensable presence as a progress-enabler, an investor in infrastructure, an investor and trade 'partner', a reliable partner in extracting natural resources as it steadily monopolizes ores and agriculture, fossil fuel and minerals.

Beijing brooks no criticism, and Canada's current government is anxious to avoid raising the CPC's irascible hackles. Though Beijing has punished Canada through abducting its citizens, trashing its trade, darkening its reputation with slander, and holding it in contempt, Canada hesitates to criticize directly and to counter-threaten consequences for unprincipled and bullying behaviour toward it by China. Instead, like a vulnerable child that tells a bully that his father or big brother will soon arrive to protect the quivering, quavering child, Canada has appealed to its fellow democracies to close ranks and pressure Beijing on Canada's behalf.

But those collegial governments are busy criticizing Beijing themselves with few holds barred, for its human rights violations. Demonstrating that principles are not forsaken for fear of irritating an influential, powerful bully into reactive consequences. With the arrest of yet another Chinese citizen- journalist whose unforgivable sin against her country's interests was to chronicle the government's response to the pandemic, foreign diplomats have expressed their nations' outrage at China's blatant suppression of facts and hounding of messengers of the news.

The young Chinese journalist, Zhang Zhan was sentenced on December 28 to four years in prison for the unspeakable crime of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble"; no laughing matter despite the feeble nature of a crime so serious the vendor must be shut away in a prison cell for years. The United States, United Kingdom and European Union lost no time in loudly issuing explicitly official statements of condemnation for the silencing of yet another journalist who in her resolve to discover the truth and disseminate it will pay dearly for her choice of action.

She already is, having gone on a hunger strike to protest her government's method of ridding itself of 'trouble-makers'. She is being force-fed against her wishes, the result of which she is in declining health, at age 37; a "citizen journalist" who among others, set out to record the coronavirus initial outbreak in Wuhan, helping to shine a spotlight on the Communist Party of China's draconian lockdown and efforts to conceal the immediacy of a serious threat to global health.

According to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the mockery of a trial had "shown once again it {China) will do whatever it takes to silence those who question the Party's official line, even regarding crucial public health information". The EU called for Ms.Zhang's immediate release, and the British foreign office spoke of Ms.Zhang and 12 Hong Kong activists as  having been "tried in secret, raising further serious questions about access to legal counsel in Mainland China."

And Canada? Its foreign affairs department sent out a tweet as an official response: "Canada is very concerned following the 4-year sentence of citizen=journalist Zhang Zhan. We call for her immediate release and that of others who report on the COVID-19 pandemic in China, including Fang Bin, Chen Mi and Cai Wei." The backstory is, of course, Canada's inability to launch a counter-response to China's abduction of two Canadians on spurious charges of endangering China as espionage agents.

Where Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor -- two innocent men who just happened to be vulnerable to being scooped up in retribution for Canada having honoured an extradition request by the  United States by detaining Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei Communications. which elicited a string of derogatory slanders from Beijing and the arbitrary arrest of the two Canadians, along with trade punishment -- are victimized, held incomminocado, their futures uncertain, their present a hell. 

Canada's natural resource sector has been treated for years as a handy bank-deposit venue enabling China to extend its worldwide grasp of resources to feed its growth as a compelling trade Goliath with aspirations to overtaking the United States as the world's super-power and largest trading depot. The situation of the last two years emphasizes Canada's growing dependence for its economic growth on China for trade and foreign direct investment. Precisely Beijing's long-range plan globally.

Zhang Zhan was jailed by Chinese authorities over her coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. (AFP)

How're We Doing?

"Most people had assumed there would be a trade-off between health and the economy; that if you imposed restrictions to limit the virus's spread and keep deaths down, your economy would be hurt -- and the tougher the restrictions the worse for the economy."

"But not so. Countries that imposed restrictions early and severely, keeping deaths per million low, also had a low decline in GDP."

"By contrast, countries that applied restrictions haphazardly, letting deaths reach high levels while hoping to protect jobs, had among the biggest declines in GDP."

"It turns out the best economic policy was successful aggressive action to limit COVID's spread."

George Fallis, professor emeritus, economics and social science, York University, Toronto

Sweden had decided on the advice of their chief medical officer of health, not to impose  restrictions on its population, hazarding the belief that Swedes would behave sensibly, following basic guidelines of a level of social distancing and protective hygiene. Swedes for the most part, acted accordingly, and voluntarily limited activities while they went about their normal lives and trusted that their government's reliance in their population's good sense would lead to a better outcome than that of their neighbours who had gone in the opposite direction; lockdowns.

 

People walk near a trash can with a sign reading “The danger is not over — Keep your distance” in Uppsala, Sweden, in October. Photo by TT News Agency/Claudio Bresciani via Retuers files

The lack of formal restrictions in Sweden led to a large number of deaths early on, and the situation        failed to improve as time wore on. Swedish politicians were determined to forge ahead with no restrictions on trade and business; the idea was to proceed as normal; perhaps not taking into account in their deliberations that with their largest trading partners -- their neighbouring states -- closed down, the faltering economy that hit their neighbours would also impact on them. In the end, they gained nothing and lost more lives than did their neighbours.

 

High-income advanced economies with reliable health-care systems represented by 20 OECD countries came out of their ordeal with the global pandemic with mixed results. Using Canada as an example, its government faltered in initial decision-making, fluctuating between cautious instructions to its population, to eventual lockdown after downplaying the emerging seriousness of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The federal government's attitude toward securing its borders was lax, it denied the usefulness of mask-wearing, instead championing testing, tracing and isolating.

 

Pedestrians in downtown Toronto during the start of the city's second lockdown in November. Photo by Cole Burston/Bloomberg files

But even these practices were poorly executed in comparison to the take-up rate of their counterpart nations in other OECD countries. One thing all countries had in common, however, despite their modern, technically advanced economies and excellent health-care systems, was unpreparedness. Along with a critical lack of PPE and other related hospital-medical equipment. This, despite more than ample warning that just such a threat as a global pandemic hovered on the near horizon. This, despite that SARS-1 had proven itself to be a deadly virus the world handled poorly, offering a lesson in the necessity of proactive preparation.

 

The first entry of the novel coronavirus took the world by surprise as it swept through the globe following its initial emergence in Wuhan, China. Which Beijing initially played down, giving inadequate and incorrect information to the WHO, delaying the declaration of a pandemic. The world looked on, fascinated and disbelieving as China then took draconian measures to cope with a dread new virus with the intention of isolating the infection and stopping its spread. Despite which COVID appeared to experience little trouble escaping the boundaries set up to contain it as it spread virulently.

 

When the winter of 2020 merged into spring, it began to appear as though much of the world had succeeded in controlling the spread of COVID, and restrictions that were imposed were relaxed while the number of cases dwindled and a sense of optimism prevailed. Until the Northern Hemisphere entered fall, then winter and the fearsome second wave of infection re-entered. Monetary stimulus, support for businesses and workers were activated by governments even as GDP shrank and the death count rose. 

Some countries had moved expeditiously and severely to limit the first wave while others struggled to contain that huge entry of infections, with mixed results. South Korea as an example experienced a mere 4.4 percent decline in GDP, with eight deaths per million population, while the U.K. took a 21.8 percent decline in GDP, and suffered 595 deaths per million. It was soon realized that those countries with the largest GDP decline experienced a larger bounceback with the mid-year decline of COVID infections.

Austria Denmark, Finland, Germany, South Korea, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland experienced a smallish decline in GDP and a lower death rate per million, while Belgium, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom were hit much harder in both metrics. On the other hand other countries came off better in one metric and worse on another; France, Ireland,Netherlands, Japan, Sweden and the United States. Among these countries many committed errors in judgement, now facing a larger second wave of cases.

European countries -- in particular those that performed poorly during the first wave and lockdowns, have faced distinctly high daily death rates due to COVID-19. Severe lockdowns were re-instituted by early November and in some countries daily deaths are on the decline, while others remain struggling with ongoing high death counts. Austria, Belgium and Switzerland's death rates have been horrifically high. But it is in the United States where throughout the nine months of the coronavirus onslaught its spread was never brought under control, resulting in ongoing daily death rise surpassing levels seen in the first wave.

Those countries that realized partial successes in controlling the coronavirus are continuing to perform well at present, including South Korea, Japan, Norway, Finland and Denmark, where death rates have been kept at a relatively low rate. Australia and New Zealand are stand-outs for their success in avoiding a second wave entirely. What has been proven to be highly successful is a protocol of strict lockdowns maintained until low levels of cases are realized, then held there with tighter border controls. Testing-tracing-isolation regimes on a large scale has become a tool of necessity.

 

 

Compehending COVID-19

"Where an epidemic is first detected does not necessarily reflect where it started."

"Research conducted in China and elsewhere since the COVID-19 pandemic began has shown that a range of animals -- including wild and farmed species -- are susceptible to infection, but when and where SARS-CoV-2 spilled over to humans, and from which animal, remains unknown."

World Health Organization report

"Asymptomatic people are probably especially important because from the studies that have been done so far people who have been asymptomatically infected, their antibody levels are lower and they may not be high enough to confer protection [without receiving an inoculating shot]."

"It's very misleading to discuss the overall case fatality rate because there is so much variability between populations and age groups."

"It tends to be the case that viruses that cause really, really high death rates are not well adapted to spread in humans."

Dr.Matthew Miller, associate professor, infectious diseases and immunology, McMaster University, Hamilton

"We should pause to remark that COVID-19 is extraordinarily successful epidemiologically, precisely because it is not extremely lethal."

"[Ebola, by contrast] is a rather stupid virus: It kills its host -- and itself == too quickly to spread far enough to reshape other species' life-ways to cater to its needs."

Dr.Samuel Paul Veissiere, Psychology Today, cognitive scientist, assistant professor of psychiatry, McGill University

There are no longer any reported cases of COVID in the city of 11 million inhabitants, Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus first emerged. There, life is resuming a normal pace. While globally the rest of the world struggles with seemingly vain attempts to control the contagion that has taken so many lives worldwide. Globally countries and their cities have experienced several 'waves' of the viral contagion, necessitating lockdowns, while their economies have been shattered, their people demoralized and fearful.

 

There remains two days left in the memorably cursed year of 2020, and when the midnight hour of 31 December arrives ushering in the next year, there will have been 1.8 million deaths worldwide, caused by SARS-CoV-2, and growing day by day. When the initial reports began circulating of a mysterious new respiratory illness, a puzzling, killing pneumonia appearing in hospitals in Wuhan, experts in the field sat up and took notice. China denied there was anything unusual happening, China informed the WHO there was no evidence of person-to-person transmission.

 

Then China closed ingress and egress to Wuhan, effectively locking the city of almost 12 million souls into itself, to contain a disease with frightening potential. Those experts looked on with growing trepidation. The coronavirus had no intention of being locked into Wuhan with its population and soon news coming out of Italy shocked the world as a warning of what was soon to appear on their own unready shores. New York quickly learned what Italy was going through and before long the virus swept the United States.

Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan March 2020

Xie Huanchi Xinhua / eyevine / Redux

"As Washington falters, Beijing is moving quickly and adeptly to take advantage of the opening created by U.S. mistakes, filling the vacuum to position itself as the global leader in pandemic response. It is working to tout its own system, provide material assistance to other countries, and even organize other governments."

"The sheer chutzpah of China’s move is hard to overstate. After all, it was Beijing’s own missteps—especially its efforts at first to cover up the severity and spread of the outbreak—that helped create the very crisis now afflicting much of the world. Yet Beijing understands that if it is seen as leading, and Washington is seen as unable or unwilling to do so, this perception could fundamentally alter the United States’ position in global politics and the contest for leadership in the twenty-first century."

Kurt M. Campbell and Rush Doshi March 18, 2020, Foreign Affairs

 Irrespective of the numbers of people whom COVID-19 has affected it is still not as lethal as an infectious disease as we commonly think it to be, given the horrendous number of victims it has taken. If it is any comfort to anyone at all, SARS-1 was far more deadly, with its one-in-three chance of killing those it infected. Even so, it failed to kill as many people as COVID has for the simple reason that the more lethal a virus is, it succeeds in killing their hosts and with it the virus itself, the opportunity to spread denied it as a result of its very virulent deadliness. 

 

COVID is different and it has behaved differently, its strategy is far more successful in that it kills fewer and infects greater numbers. Numbers so great that the kill-rate far outdistances that of the more deadly viruses that have gone before it. COVID thrives in those it infects and because it is less deadly it is more contagiously opportunistic, adept at transmission in a way that SARS-1 failed to be. Given the numbers it infects it demonstrates that though less deadly it has become more lethal simply through strength of numbers. 

The most common symptoms of infection; shortness of breath, loss of taste and smell, cough, fever and tiredness is a giveaway of the virus's presence. Those failing to show any symptoms are still capable of infecting others, even as asymptomatic carriers' impact on infection spread is still an unknown. Roughly one in five people with COVID have no symptoms, representing around 20 percent of all cases. "But researchers are divided about whether asymptomatic infections are acting as a 'silent driver' of the pandemic'", according to a study in the Nature Journal.

And according to the WHO, "The virus can spread from an infected person's mouth or nose in small liquid particles when they cough, sneeze, speak, sing or breathe heavily. These liquid particles are different sizes, ranging from larger 'respiratory droplets' to smaller 'aerosols'." No longer does science believe that surface contamination is the threat it was made out to be at the beginning of the pandemic; transmission is primarily through respiratory droplets and aerosols.

 

A man with what was then a mystery illness is brought into a Wuhan hospital in January this year. Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP/Getty Image

 

A study in ScienceMag illustrates that viruses in droplets "can be sprayed like tiny cannonballs onto nearby individuals", with virus-laden aerosols capable of remaining in the air for hours. COVID is able to remain active on a surface for several hours, even days, yet unless that surface is touched, and hands then reach out for eyes, mouth or nose, there is no threat as long as awareness and simple hygiene methods are followed; the use of antibacterials or rigorous handwashing.

There is relief on the horizon. Vaccines which are rolling out and beginning to be distributed since gaining official permission to proceed. Inoculations are taking place targeting the most vulnerable within society with plans to expedite vaccines for distribution and vaccinating entire populations. That may take as long globally as the length of time the world has been coping with trying to contain the outbreaks. Which is good reason to understand that populations must continue to distance themselves physically, wear masks, observe good hygiene and avoid crowded indoor spaces.

In the interim, other treatments of COVID are being explored. As long as the danger of contracting     COVID continues, alternate treatments fill a necessary gap, and may in fact continue to have applications useful to ward off the effects of COVID. Among them convalescent plasma which consists of using blood from people who have recovered from illness to aid others by using their protective antibodies as a new COVID-19 therapeutic protocol.

Canada has instituted a convalescent plasma trial with a need to recruit new blood donors to study whether the proposed therapy actually works as it is meant to do theoretically. Therapeutics such as this are yet to come to market, but what is available is a few drugs that help overcome the most severe cases of COVID: Dexamethasone, a steroid acting as an anti-inflammatory, proven effective on the most ill patients, and remdesivir, an antiviral which is able to prevent the virus from replicating in a person sick with severe infection.

Lastly, there is 'proning', considered effective in hospitals by reducing the high demand for ventilators with the process of turning a sick individual from their back to their stomach for improved oxygenation.

As far as the World Health Organization is concerned, COVID-19 should be considered a test run. A serious virus that has managed to upturn the world as we know it, but not as lethal as a viral pestilence can conceivably become. The WHO has warned and continues to warn of a severely deadly strain of virus that may eventually arrive. That the discoveries made by science in coping with and trying to fully comprehend the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID may better prepare us for the Big One.

"This is coming at the virus from a different way. It's almost boosting the patient's own immune system by giving them additional antibodies [through administering convalescent plasma]. Like a foot soldier to essentially fight off the infection."

"We're 100 percent reliant on people who have had the infection and have recovered to become blood donors."

Dr.Donald Arnold, associate professor of medicine, director, McMaster Centre for Transfusion Research