Province preparing for coronavirus outbreak, adding to travel list

Health authorities around the world are preparing for coronavirus outbreaks as they watch more pop up in places like Italy and South Korea.

Saskatchewan also is gearing up, even though it hasn’t had any confirmed cases.

On Wednesday, Canadian health officials said they’re expanding their testing protocols to include people who recently have travelled to six countries. If someone comes to Canada from those countries, they should get tested if they show up with symptoms.

The list now includes China, Italy, Iran and South Korea, which are showing sustained community transmission. Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore also are on the list because they have larger clusters of outbreaks.

As the progress of the virus is watched closely in those countries, Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Health is preparing for a possible outbreak here.

Dr. Saqib Shahab, the chief medical health officer for the ministry, said the province has dealt with a pandemic before, in 2010 with H1N1.

“We know how to plan for a pandemic and then respond to it,” he said. “What’s a bit unusual about COVID-19 is, at this point, there isn’t a vaccine in the near future and there are trials happening on an antiviral but there isn’t an antiviral.”

This year, the ministry was planning to overhaul its pandemic response anyway, so now it’s doing that with a focus on coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.

Shahab said 80 per cent of people who contract the virus do well just staying at home until they get better. About 20 per cent might need to be cared for in hospital, where about five per cent would need intensive care.

Ideally, Shahab said hospitals would have 15 per cent open capacity all the time in case of a surge, but he said hospitals in Canada can’t afford to work like that and are usually at or over capacity. He said that means the planning they’re doing is figuring out how to find the beds and hospital capacity if there is a surge.

Shahab said creating hospital capacity is something health officials already have to do during flu season.

“Increasing your surge capacity four or five times higher than what you need in a regular flu season is not a trivial thing. It can be done, but it has to be planned for, and not thought about when you’re actually having that issue. So that’s the planning that’s happening right now,” Shahab said.

He said the planning includes knowing how many beds there are with access to oxygen and ventilators, knowing where people can be moved, and knowing how health officials could reschedule other non-emergent services to make more space.

Individual cases could have their own rooms to keep them away from other patients, but Shahab said if there were a lot of patients, then they could be closed off together in their own ward.

“So you could have one floor just for COVID-19 patients and then staff dedicated to that floor, so then you minimize the transport of equipment (and) staff between floors, which we already do during influenza outbreaks,” explained Shahab.

There’s also planning that needs to be done outside of hospitals. Shahab said officials would need to have a way to test and treat people in a clinical setting without infecting other people, and helping people who are isolated in their homes while they’re recovering.

To try to stop the spread, Italy has taken big public health measures like closing schools, telling people to work from home if they can, and putting a kibosh on public gatherings like watching soccer matches and fashion shows. Japan also is closing schools.

Shahab said in a serious situation where there’s a sudden surge of cases, those kinds of measures could be taken here.

“Those kinds of things should be done just to limit the spread,” he said. “And what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to reduce the peak of the outbreak, you’re trying to spread it out, and then those public health measures help in reducing the pressure on the acute case system.”

Shahab said having that kind of planning done is important.

“Our hope is it doesn’t come to that in Saskatchewan,” he said. “But if it does come to that, we should already have in our minds a plan for our family, a community plan, and of course the health system needs to be ready.”