Pandemic end-game plan needed

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This article was published 02/02/2022 (1711 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba has reached the pandemic point where it is now considering loosening restrictions, not because there’s too little COVID-19, but because there is too much. Not because transmission is under control, but because transmission cannot be controlled.

Welcome to the COVID-19 paradox.

As we brace ourselves to enter Year Three of this pandemic, frustration and fatigue are replacing thoughts and prayers as the animating sentiments of most Canadians in response to COVID-19. Who’s to blame them for thinking “why bother?” when, courtesy of Omicron, the vaccinated can still catch COVID-19, case numbers don’t count, testing is irrelevant and contact tracing can’t be found.

Everything we were told to do and keep doing to keep COVID-19 down seems to no longer matter. And everything governments did to keep us all safe seems inadequate in Omicron’s highly contagious wake.

This is the environment in which Manitoba must determine not the next step on COVID-19 but its end game on COVID-19. It is no longer a question of whether public-health restrictions will be lifted – they will – but how they can stay lifted. Governments will be loath to restrict anew once citizens have begun to taste freedom’s fruits. So elected leaders need to lift carefully, thoughtfully, with more than self-congratulatory relief. We need an end-game plan to manage COVID-19 for the long haul.

Last fall, the Manitoba government enjoyed some of its highest approval ratings for pandemic management. Now, not so much. That support was the direct result of its measured summer reopening plan. Tied to increasing vaccination rates, bolstered by vaccination passports and publicly communicated, it provided a realistic roadmap to reopening that Manitobans could foresee and follow.

This winter, Premier Heather Stefanson told Manitobans that when it comes to COVID-19, “We must learn to live with it.” If so, the government needs to set out a viable end-game plan to put that assertion into practice.

By refusing in December to go to code red under the province’s Pandemic Response System, the government missed the opportunity to signal a graduated, transparent COVID-19 response. By decoupling public-health advice from government public-health decisions in statements in January, the premier suggested political determinations by cabinet could trump science and evidence.

Last week, the government extended orders for one week to “gather data” to confirm Omicron’s plateau. It said nothing about preparing the conditions to come for living with and managing COVID-19. There is time to rectify this omission, and to set out the end game. As much as people want relief from restrictions, they also want certainty as to what this means for the future.

No government can guarantee “no COVID,” but it can guarantee on what basis it will keep responding to it — which, inevitably, it must.

So, here’s a 1-2-3 approach to do just that:

One, consult. Not behind the scenes, but formally and openly. Create a new COVID-19 management board comprised of health, community, business and epidemiology experts based on the community advisory council model put in place by the Executive Council office last summer. Add a group of representative citizens chosen by lottery from around the province.

Give this board the public authority to review and advise on pandemic data and measures to build a “living with COVID-19” end-game plan. That process will educate, inform and allow for explanations of risks and trade-offs. Most importantly, it will legitimize what goes forward because without societal acceptance, it won’t work.

Two, set out the core societal values and public policy principles and goals to guide this work. Living with COVID-19 is a whole-of-society need, so commencing with values, principles and goals is the best way to unite a majority around that need and guide the necessary trade-offs. The premier has spoken of “balance.” It fits right here, with others.

Three, establish a series of public COVID-19 scientific and health system thresholds, as was done for vaccination rates, to guide the province’s movement into reducing public restrictions or applying new ones if warranted. Vaccination still works, and booster rates need to rise. Hospitalizations and ICU capacity remains very strained, not to mention the backlog in surgeries and procedures which render a “lift all restrictions” policy impossible.

As the virus adapts, so too must our public-health responses. But Year Three requires establishing a new COVID-19 governance model to convince Manitobans the province has come up with the right plan to truly live with COVID-19. This may mean retaining some measures of effective COVID-19 management, such as vaccine passports, reasonable capacity limits and indoor masking for a while yet as part of this end game.

After two years of COVID-19, trust in politicians, governments and experts has diminished. But it is not gone. Government has proved quite adaptive and innovative in responding to the virus. It now needs to adapt and innovate to a higher level than it has ever done if it wishes to maintain the trust and safety of its citizens.

COVID-19 hasn’t ended, yet an end-game plan is needed. That, too, is a COVID-19 paradox.

David McLaughlin was Clerk of the Executive Council in the government of Manitoba in 2020-21. He was campaign manager for the PC Party of Manitoba in the 2016 and 2019 elections.