Higgs's 'We'll all get COVID' comment strikes a nerve
Immunocompromised Fredericton woman hoped for more ‘compassion’ from premier
Premier Blaine Higgs has talked about "living with COVID" for months now, but he's never articulated what that concept means quite the way he did last Friday at the legislature.
Higgs literally shrugged as he predicted in a scrum with reporters that everyone in New Brunswick will probably be infected by the virus eventually.
"My jaw dropped to the floor," said Fredericton resident Jessica Bleasdale.
"I had never really quite heard him articulate it in that manner, in that it's just an expectation that we'd all get COVID. And that's an unacceptable response during a pandemic."
University of Toronto infectious disease epidemiologist Colin Furness says the premier's statement represents "an abandonment" of people most at risk from severe COVID symptoms.
"I think the comment's appalling. I think it's a huge violation of the social contract."
Bleasdale has complained to the College of Physicians and Surgeons and to the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission about Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell recommending the end of mask mandates in schools.
She notes that while more than 90 per cent of polio infections are asymptomatic, what society remembers now about the North American epidemic after the Second World War is those left paralyzed by the disease before a vaccine was developed.
"I'm not prepared to have my children be part of an experiment," she said.
As of last week, approximately one in every nine New Brunswickers had contracted COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
Higgs's remarks last Friday were another example of the premier's trademark candour: he often expresses his thoughts with little regard for what the political blowback might be.
But at a time when some New Brunswickers are on edge about the March 14 end of all protective measures, the comment struck a nerve.
"My first response was anger," says Elizabeth Doherty, a Fredericton university student who is immunocompromised and who has suffered severe COVID symptoms since testing positive March 11.
"I don't feel he is addressing the people most vulnerable to this virus when he says those statements. I feel like we're once again left out of that."
Higgs was responding to a petition tabled in the legislature by Liberal MLA Rob McKee in which 1,400 people call for a return of mask mandates in provincial schools.
He said Public Health had been "very, very clear" that the pandemic would be manageable even without the government's COVID winter plan in place.
"The goal was to ensure that hospitals could manage, because we know probably at the end of the day, we'll all get COVID in some way or another, and maybe it won't be what we think is COVID, we'll think it's a cold."
No response from Health
The Department of Health did not respond Monday to a question from CBC News about whether its current COVID strategy presumes everyone in the province will be infected and whether it has models showing how quickly that might happen.
When the province announced Jan. 13 that it was moving to Level 3 of its winter plan, the strictest version, there were 104 people in hospitals with COVID-19.
As of the last update on March 22, there were 129, an increase of 30 over a week before.
But Higgs said Friday that hospitals "can manage this and we have done so through the entire pandemic."
Higgs and many members of his family were infected with COVID-19 over the Christmas break, and he has frequently mentioned that his symptoms were like a flu or cold.
"What do I gotta do to be in the group that only gets the cold?" asked Doherty. "I don't have any control over that, really."
Furness says patients like Doherty are the ones he worries about most.
"Do we have a duty to keep them safe? I would argue that we do. And when you sit down and say everyone's going to get it, you're saying we don't have it anymore."
Doherty, a mature student at St. Thomas University, was born prematurely and has a complex medical history that includes severe lung disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema and asthma.
"When all you're hearing about generally is those who are having milder symptoms, you sort of start to wonder 'Why me?' It's hard not to go down that rabbit hole," she said.
"Unfortunately I'm not one of the ones that Premier Higgs spoke of that would just maybe get a cold."
Defining 'Living with COVID'
It's hard to project what it would look like if all New Brunswickers were infected with COVID-19.
Researchers are still looking at what "long COVID" means.
And modelling case growth is getting harder, Furness says, because vaccine immunity and natural immunity from infection wane over time, meaning people can be infected several times.
"It's not like this is something you're going to suffer once and then it's over and done with. That's what a lot of people would like to think, because that certainly makes it a lot easier to understand and rationalize the decision to stop trying to protect people."
On top of that, the number of cases is likely much larger because some people won't know they have COVID or won't bother reporting it.
The pace of vaccinations is also slowing in the province. Fewer than 60 per cent of children aged 5-11 had a first vaccine dose as of March 22.
And only 51 per cent of eligible people have had a third shot as a booster, which is how Public Health defines "fully protected."
Still, Furness says everyone getting COVID is not inevitable but is only one of several possible outcomes.
"It's a function of what your policy is," he said. "If that's your policy, you can certainly enact policy that makes pretty sure that everyone will get COVID."
He says "living with COVID" seems to mean doing nothing, when it should mean measures such as improved ventilation and a return to mask mandates during spikes.
While the virus can't be eliminated, "we can create conditions under which people who are particularly at risk have a fighting chance of not getting it, or not getting it severely."
Doherty said her symptoms have been "awful" since her positive test, including extreme fatigue, joint and muscle pain, nausea, headaches and difficulty concentrating.
Doherty is due to graduate this spring and until her positive test on March 11, she felt confident she'd make it.
Now she's unsure how the rest of her semester will play out. But she says a couple of times each day, she looks at her graduation ring, which arrived last week, to motivate herself to not give up.
The premier's comments didn't help that effort, she said.
"There's a whole population that is completely being pushed aside or not addressed... Not everyone was fortunate enough to just get the sniffles that he had.
"I just really would have appreciated a little bit more compassion."
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