The World Health Organization took the step on Wednesday of declaring the novel coronavirus outbreak to have acquired the characteristics of a pandemic. Then, having attached a scary label to a scary situation, it told the world not to panic.
While many will now focus on a single, ominous-sounding word, what they ought to be paying attention to are the important disclaimers the WHO attached to its announcement.
Those include the fact that calling the outbreak a pandemic doesn’t mean the disease caused by the virus, COVID-19, is suddenly more dangerous or bound to cause mass illness and death. It simply means that it has now spread worldwide and is not concentrated in one area, as an epidemic is.
“Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this coronavirus,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO. “It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do.” In other words, today is not scarier than yesterday. But countries need to commit themselves to containing the virus. If anything, the WHO is trying to deliver shock therapy to complacent governments.
As long as governments in the more than 100 countries that have confirmed cases act responsibly and quickly to curb the virus’s spread, this will go down in history as a short-lived situation, no matter what you call it.
Canada’s federal government appears to be taking the right steps. Its latest moves, made just hours before the WHO’s announcement, are the right response to the situation in Canada, where as of Wednesday there were just over 100 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including the first known incident of community transmission, and only one death.
Ottawa is committing $1-billion to the fight. Some will go to covering the direct costs of the outbreak, such as $500-million to provincial and territorial governments, which are responsible for most of Canada’s health care system. Another $5-million will cover increased Employment Insurance sickness benefits for those who need to go into quarantine. There is also $50-million for purchasing protective equipment for health care workers.
Some money will also go to preventative measures, including $275-million for research, and millions more for regional public health services and communications with the public.
Is it enough? The support for people who need the EI sickness benefits, which includes waiving the usual one-week waiting period, may only be a start. Some part-time and recently hired workers do not qualify for EI, and it would be a mistake to deprive them of the financial inducement to self-isolate if they fall sick. Canada needs to ensure that every person who has to stay home can afford to do so.
For the most part, though, Ottawa is saying and doing the right things. That includes pledging to stimulate the economy if needed, but refraining from doing so until we have a better picture of the scale and nature of the economic fallout.
Provincial governments are stepping up, too. Ontario, one of the hardest hit provinces, announced Wednesday it would set aside $100-million as a COVID-19 contingency fund.
And the Public Health Agency of Canada, along with public health officials in various provinces, have provided thoughtful and measured responses to the latest cases, and kept people informed.
As the WHO’s Dr. Tedros said Wednesday, “If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace, and mobilize their people in the response, those with a handful of COVID-19 cases can prevent those cases becoming clusters, and those clusters becoming community transmission.”
That is the fight in Canada, and the rest of the world, right now. Modern science has developed powerful weapons; the fact that a test for identifying the coronavirus was developed so quickly means we are not working in the dark.
The next issue for Canadian governments to tackle concerns large gatherings. Should conferences and pro sports events be temporarily suspended? Should schools be closed for a few weeks, as a way of short-circuiting the pandemic?
On Wednesday, the body in charge of U.S. college sports, the NCAA, announced that the annual basketball tournament known as March Madness, which normally draws hundreds of thousands of fans, will be played in empty arenas.
Should similar steps be taken in Canada? Ottawa needs to weigh the evidence and the science, and offer an answer, ASAP.