Ready for a next pandemic? Not really, advances in her new work the DD Cécile Tremblay, microbiologist and infectiologist at the CHUM Research Center and seasoned analyst popular with the media since the start of the pandemic. Interview.
The Quebec government has missed several great opportunities to reinforce the public health message and undermine the misinformation that undermines the fight against COVID-19, believes the author of Ready for a next pandemic?. But it is not too late, because the state of collective immunity, far from being reached, suggests a long and slow way out of the crisis, predicts scientist Cécile Tremblay.
“We still don’t have the tools, like a universal vaccine, to achieve long-term immunity, like that provided by measles or whooping cough vaccines. Whether with current infections or vaccines, immunity to coronaviruses is short-lived. It is certain that we will experience other waves, because immunity will always weaken in part of the population after a few months, allowing the virus to circulate again”, estimates the DD Tremblay.
Despite this not very encouraging observation, the book of the specialist in immunology is intended to be rather constructive and bearer of solutions. In some 200 pages, the one we have often seen on the small screen deciphering complex scientific concepts in the midst of a health crisis brings together in this book the lessons to be learned from 24 months of pandemic, to do better next time.
Pandemic 101
Written before the 6and vague, the work is also intended as a popularization tool, to slip subtly into the pockets of those who are still tangled in the miasma of misinformation. “My goal is not to find culprits. If we only do that, we miss the point, which is to tackle the basic problems and put forward concrete solutions for the future,” she insists.
That said, in an interview, the researcher is nonetheless critical of the current situation and believes that the government is missing the boat. After keeping a fairly continuous message of prevention, Quebec has abdicated since the end of the 5and vague, she thinks. “The government feels the population is tired and has put the pandemic on the back burner. However, we have really not reached the endemic phase, ”assures the DD Tremblay.
“Before Christmas, with so many cases, 2,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 employees absent from the network, it was a disaster. We were closing everything. And there, everything remains open and everyone must manage their risk. The reasons for this volte-face must be explained to the public. Otherwise, how can he keep faith? »
The lack of cohesion — on the question of the mask at the start of a pandemic — embodies the perfect example of the harm caused by a lack of transparency, she believes. “We must always say what we are doing and why, and also what we know that we don’t know. Nuancing the words is always difficult in a crisis, ”she believes.
She also deplores the blunders committed in the dossier of the vaccination of health care workers — which should be compulsory, according to her — during the Christmas gatherings promised by François Legault when a new wave hit Europe, and during the episode of the thunderous “Freedom Convoy” anti-sanitary measures.
“After these demonstrations, the government welcomed the few breakages that occurred in Quebec and said that it was “good people”, deplores the DD Tremblay. But the message conveyed by these events was harmful. The government has not counterbalanced this by reinforcing the public health message, on the airwaves or on social networks. It should have been done. We stopped talking about a pandemic at that point. »
The craze for the 3and dose incidentally fell flat. The DD Tremblay regrets that we haven’t learned, even from previous waves. “It’s denying reality to say that what happens in Europe ‘could’ not happen here. Better to give the right time than to have to go back. There is a very fine line between pleading lack of social acceptability and giving false illusions. »
Can do better
Yes Ready for a next pandemic? underlines the immense luck of Quebecers to have escaped an extreme politicization of health measures, unlike the United States, the DD Tremblay says we will have to keep an eye out as the election approaches. “Public health measures must remain guided by science. »
In addition to healing the wounds of the health network, the infectious disease specialist considers that it is urgent to create a permanent committee for surveillance, research and pandemic preparedness, equipped with an observatory on emerging viruses and zoonoses. “A Minister of Health is far too busy managing a network in crisis to do that. We need a committee of experts, ready at all times, not just in times of pandemic, and which has several specific plans, adjusted to various contagion scenarios. » That of Quebec had no not expected that the virus would hit the CHSLDs first.
The infection specialist is also sorry for the ageism that permeates government discourse, when we now pay little heed to the deaths of those who were called “our builders” at the start of the pandemic.
“It is not all hopeless cases and people who have signed treatment orders who die. The death of septuagenarians still very active in society who work or take care of their grandchildren is serious. The discourse would be quite different if the virus affected children. »
In short, many things, including new ventilation standards in CHSLDs and schools, should already be started. Because the virus will not disappear tomorrow morning.
“By dint of vaccines and reinfections, it is not impossible that some cellular immunity against COVID will end up developing over months and years, other than just antibodies, thinks the DD Tremblay. But in the meantime, we must speed up the granting of booster doses to as many people as possible, precisely because these doses [préalablement injectées] are less effective in those most at risk. We must not accept that 30 or 40 people die every day from a preventable disease. »