Balance required in medical, political response to pandemic By: Dan Lett Posted: 6:59 PM CDT Monday, Mar. 16, 2020

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/03/2020 (1649 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If truth is the first casualty of war, clarity and consistency are certainly among the first casualties of a pandemic.

Well into the response in Manitoba, we can see just about everyone who should be involved in preparing for an onslaught of COVID-19 cases is, in fact, on the job.

Public health officials are looking for any change in the nature or properties of the coronavirus, while prepping for every possible contingency. Politicians are doing their part to urge people to make simple sacrifices without sparking panic. Employers are slowly developing policies to allow greater flexibility in how and where people work.

Yet, there is still a fair degree of confusion about the steps being taken to control its spread. That has everything to do with the nature of the virus, and less with the quality or quantity of the work being done by public health officials.

Even though the province and local governments have decided to close every school, recreation centre, pool, library and arena in an effort to control the spread of the virus, a number of other facilities that attract large numbers of people remain untouched. Such as provincial casinos.

Dr. Brent Roussin, chief provincial public health officer, has been somewhat evasive about whether he would order casinos to close, even as other provinces do exactly that. Given casinos attract an older crowd, and an older crowd is more at risk from COVID-19, you would think shutting down McPhillips Station and Club Regent in Winnipeg would be a no-brainer.

So far, it’s been a non-starter; casinos remain up and running, and nobody from government can explain exactly why.

Although Roussin has the legal power to make just about any decision he thinks is necessary, he does not work in a vacuum. Decisions are made in consultation with the political arm of government, in particular the premier’s office and executive council. It is getting harder and harder to believe Roussin’s best efforts aren’t being influenced just a bit from the political side.

There are mounting examples where the best medical advice has run headlong into issues of a more administrative or political nature.

Last week, the Manitoba civil service commission circulated a policy that reminded its members they had to obtain a signed doctor’s note if they were sick and couldn’t come into work. On the very same day, as government managers were being told to hold fast on that policy, Roussin held a news conference urging anyone who was sick to stay home and pleading with employers to forgo any requirement for a note.

“Our system needs to focus on this pandemic, not on signing notes for individuals, right now,” Roussin said with a hint of frustration in his voice.

On Monday, the province dropped the note requirement. The questioning lingering is: why couldn’t the civil service commission get on the same page as the chief public health officer? It suggests a degree of disorganization at a higher level.

Advising sick people to stay home from work is a medical decision; absolving those people from obtaining a doctor’s note is a workplace policy that falls directly at the feet of Premier Brian Pallister, who has been unable, at times, to connect the dots between all of the policies his government is issuing.

We should be happy, in the end, the right decision was made — and a bit concerned about how long it took to make it.

There is a similar disconnect unfolding around the province’s decision to close schools, effective March 23.

With no school available, many families will be scrambling for child care. Some will inevitably seek permission from employers to work from home so they can care for those children. Roussin has already strongly recommended all employers consider allowing employees to work from home, if possible, both to help with child care and to contribute to the social distancing epidemiologists think is so important in controlling the spread of the virus.

The civil service commission directives of last week do include a recommendation “at-home arrangements” be considered “as appropriate.” Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of detail in there about how widely it could be applied.

Time is of the essence; by next week, thousands of provincial civil servants will be suddenly faced with house-bound children. They will need some clarity about whether the school closure is an “appropriate” reason for working at home.

A pandemic is a confounding challenge to confront. Our understanding of how the virus is being transmitted is changing almost by the hour; as are the measures our public health experts are devising to control the spread of the virus. For the most part, we’ve done a pretty good job.

The really good news is the problem of the left hand and the right hand not working in concert is a simple matter to solve. The premier just needs to start taking the advice of his own doctor.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca