Health experts acknowledge that rethinking is needed to combat “COVID fatigue”

It is the foundation of public health and is often associated Reduce the harm caused by drug use.. But can harm reduction also help reduce the risk of COVID-19?

Ottawa’s Chief Health Officer considers it worth scrutinizing. And the new state COVID-19 strategy announced on Tuesday is Dr. It will give Vera Etches and other health authorities real-time opportunities to do so.

Bars and restaurants will reopen in Ottawa with some restrictions as early as Saturday. Bars, restaurants, gyms, theaters and other facilities were closed at hotspots in Ottawa and other states last month after the COVID-19 cases began to surge. Since then, new cases have begun to decline.

On Tuesday, the state introduced a new strategy that proposes to keep all indoor dining and gyms in restaurants and bars open except in the worst-case scenarios, increasing limits depending on the number of cases and medical capacity. ..

Earlier this week, in a presentation to the Ottawa Health Commission, Etches said that the pandemic wouldn’t go away soon and people should be able to live, taking a harm reduction approach to coexist with COVID-19. Raised the idea of ​​taking.

She suggested that keeping restaurants and bars closed resembles an abstinence-only message about substance use. It doesn’t work.

“If the venue isn’t open and doesn’t open late enough, it drives people to socialize in an internal environment with no physical distance,” she told the city’s health committee.

According to her, restaurants and bars have worked hard to prevent the spread of barriers, masks and distances. This should be a safer social space than a private gathering.

“There isn’t much data on this,” she admitted. “This is what we are trying to monitor and evaluate.”

In a letter to Mayor of Ottawa Jim Watson on a new approach to the Ottawa public health pandemic, Etch’s said one of the reasons for starting the business was “unsupervised, frequent, high-risk individuals or underground. It is a harm reduction approach to minimize the gathering of Ottawa. COVID-19 mitigation control to minimize infection has not been implemented. “

Harm reduction recognizes the limits of simply saying no and instead provides a way to manage risk. The longer the pandemic, the more COVID fatigue is a factor in whether the general public complies with strict blockade rules.

Etching is not the first person to propose harm reduction as a practical strategy to reduce negative consequences, as it avoids COVID fatigue and the pandemic lasts for at least another year.

Earlier this year, Harvard epidemiologist Julia Marcus wrote in the Atlantic Ocean and compared telling the public to refrain from all face-to-face social contact with abstinence-only messages about sex and matter. She said they wouldn’t work in such cases and in the long run with COVID-19.

“What does coronavirus harm reduction look like?” She asked. “Sustainable anti-coronavirus strategies will still advise house parties, but it also reactivates outdoor and indoor spaces to reduce congestion, increase ventilation and promote physical distance. It involves designing, which allows people to live with reduced risk.

UOttawa epidemiologist Raywat Deonandan said it was worth considering, but would be difficult to measure.

Opening a bar or restaurant is unlikely to mean the end of socializing at home, given the many factors involved, but at high risk of infection and incapacitating behavior. He said it could be reduced. Difficulty, along with public messaging, is trying to quantify how different that approach makes a difference, he said.

“Harm reduction has always been one of the pillars of public health and is worth considering,” he said.

Deonandan also said he was happy to see Etches and Ottawa Public Health creatively thinking about how to approach the pandemic.

“I’m glad they’re thinking about new things and being creative here.”

Deonandan said he believes Ontario isn’t advanced enough to curb COVID-19. It took place in South Korea and other countries that locked down until the virus was nearly eliminated, then maintained a small number through extensive testing and tracking, and allowed the company to reopen.

“I prefer the Asian way. I lower the case number and then hold it that way and resume.”

Like etching, Deonandan said the virus is present for the foreseeable future.

“I think the pandemic will be declared in early 2022.”

This week, Etches said that this timeline learned how to live safely with COVID-19 and practiced public health measures such as frequent hand washing, wearing masks, and social distance. He said that is the reason why he can return to that aspect.

“I think the tone (until now) is a little more you can’t do. It doesn’t tell us we’re alive. It tells us we’re not alive. We need to come back to life. I think there is. “