Microbiologist warns against complacency despite success with COVID-19

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As of Wednesday morning, Saskatchewan had 58 active cases of COVID-19. Out of 1,669 cases confirmed since the pandemic began, 24 people have died.

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Blondeau believes there are a few reasons behind the low death rate. He said the province was quick to implement testing.

“By having that rapid testing being available, it meant that intervention could occur much (quicker) in terms of identifying people that were positive and getting them quarantined and isolated,” he said.

As well, he noted half the province’s population lives outside its two major cities.

“For that reason alone, where there’s less interaction and less crowding, it probably contributed as well to reducing the likelihood for the spread of the virus,” he said.

Blondeau also flagged a few trends to watch in the future, including research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that suggests many more people might have been infected with the virus than testing data shows.

If that is the case, he said even more people would have been exposed to the virus and the only way to know for sure is through serology testing.

“That’s not just a Saskatchewan thing that we need to do. That would be a country-wide thing,” he said.

Also, he said the data is changing a bit regarding how children are affected by the virus.

They tend to tolerate the virus well, Blondeau said, but there have been reports of an unexplained inflammatory syndrome called Kawasaki Syndrome, as well as “COVID toes” and discolouration.

In limited sampling, he said that might suggest “viral loads” might be higher in children than previously thought.

“If that’s the case, then I think we have to pay a bit more attention to children to see whether or not they could be a reservoir for transmission of the virus,” Blondeau said.

“I don’t want to be an alarmist with that, but that’s what the data is suggesting in at least one study and I think that we just need little bit more work here to figure out what it actually means.”