Even if the transmission by inhalation of COVID-19 has been recognized by various authorities, the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) still does not take it into account in some of its opinions, says Geneviève Marchand, microbiologist and researcher. at the Robert-Sauvé Research Institute in Occupational Health and Safety (IRSST).
Mme Marchand testified Thursday at the coroner’s public inquest examining the deaths that occurred in CHSLDs in Quebec during the first wave of COVID-19.
From April 2020, Mme Marchand publicly questioned that the INSPQ put aside the risk of aerosol transmission of the COVID-19 virus and prioritized the droplet-contact mode of transmission. According to Mme Marchand, there was from the start of the pandemic “enough data and scientific information to allow us to do much more” and to judge that transmission by inhalation was “plausible”.
To protect themselves from a virus transmitted by inhalation, various measures must be adopted by healthcare workers, including wearing a respiratory protective device such as an N95. In Quebec, the wearing of the N95 was limited for months to only procedures generating aerosols, such as intubations. Workers in the hot zone wore only procedural masks.
Over the months, several authorities have recognized the mode of transmission by inhalation of COVID-19, including the US CDC, said Mr.me Trader.
In March 2021, a judgment of the Administrative Labor Tribunal also concluded that the N95 mask should be worn in warm and hot areas in Quebec. The next day, the CNESST issued a recommendation in this direction. The TAT’s judgment has been appealed. But in the meantime, it is the recommendation of the CNESST that applies, explains the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS).
Despite everything, Mme Marchand does not understand how the INSPQ was able, in a notice published in July 2021, to recommend that healthcare workers working within two meters of a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 to wear a procedure mask. level 2. This type of mask is not a respirator like the N95, explained Mr.me Trader.
“Despite the accumulation of data demonstrating the plausibility of transmission by inhalation, the means of prevention recommended by PCI remain the droplet / contact precaution and are poorly adapted to transmission by inhalation”, says Mme Trader.
She says that in January 2021, the INSPQ had adopted new terminology surrounding the transmission of COVID-19. On the INSPQ website, it is written that COVID-19 “is transmitted mainly during close contact between people, less than 2 meters away, and prolonged for more than 15 minutes. Part of this transmission is through aerosols in the air ”.
In front of Coroner Géhane Kamel, Mme Marchand said that “we must do more than less in pandemic situations where we have had thousands of deaths and more than 40,000 health workers infected.”
The INSPQ did not want to comment on Mr.me Trader. The DD Jocelyne Sauvé, the DD Chantale Sauvageau and the Dr Jasmin Villeneuve from the INSPQ will testify before the coroner on November 10.
“We made the old people pay the price”
Earlier today, the president of the Council for the Protection of the Sick, Claude Brunet, presented a series of newspaper articles which exposed, as of February 2020, that the elderly were most at risk with COVID-19.
“If I, as a citizen, managed to do a press review, was it done by the authorities? Did public health keep a watch on what was happening elsewhere? He asked.
For Mr. Brunet, the government has been too slow to act to protect seniors. “All these inactions will have contributed to the death of how many people?” […] It is as if we wanted to protect the healthy population and that we had made the old people pay the price ”. Mr. Brunet also recalled that a quarter of CHSLD residents receive support from family caregivers in Quebec. When the government banned all visits on March 23, 2020, 10,000 family caregivers were no longer able to intervene. “This eviction prevented CHSLD residents from receiving basic care. To be hydrated… ”laments Mr. Brunet. The coroner’s inquest continues next week.