We can, and must, do more to protect students in higher education from the risks of post-COVID condition

Published December 8, 2024

Published by: The Conversation
Published on: December 8, 2024
By Julia M. Wright, Dick Zoutman, Mark Ungrin, Ryan Tennant

Canada’s postsecondary institutions have a responsibility to protect students and others on campus from the risks of post-COVID condition as a matter of campus safety.

Canada’s Chief Science Advisor, Mona Nemer, recently released the report, Dealing with the Fallout: Post-COVID Condition and its Continued Impacts on Individuals and Society.

Post-COVID condition (PCC), also known as “long COVID,” refers to the poorly understood and often serious health damage left by the SARS-CoV-2 virus after the acute illness appears to have passed.

Universities, colleges and schools have a duty to take reasonable precautions to protect students, staff and faculty from foreseeable harms. They must ensure the water on campus is safe to drink. They must install fire and carbon monoxide detectors and make evacuation plans. Many have adopted a smoke-free policy on campus as part of a commitment to an international charter on health promotion in universities and colleges. Yet there is little pandemic health promotion on Canadian campuses.

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labour rights

I loved my teaching career. COVID normalization stole it from me

Published August 23, 2024

Published by: The Globe and Mail
Published on: August 23, 2024
By Jacob Scheier

Jacob Scheier is an essayist, freelance journalist and Governor-General’s Literary Award-winning poet whose books include Is This Scary?

It might not have been the most favourable, but one of the most memorable comments I ever received on a student evaluation was that I could be “a bit hard to follow, but that was more an example of [my] passion for this subject over anything.” That subject was creative writing. And yes, sometimes, I had difficulty tempering my excitement throughout a teaching career that has now been cut short.

I have – or had – been teaching as a contract or “sessional” creative-writing instructor. Given the competitiveness of the academic job market and my age (I was nearly 40 when I earned the requisite degree, though I had already published four books), I had come to accept that it was unlikely that I would ever have a faculty position. But I could live with that because I still had the rare privilege of making a (barely) livable wage doing something I was very passionate about.

The COVID-19 pandemic took that from me. Actually, that’s not quite right. It was the perceived “end” of the pandemic that really ruined my teaching career.

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Ontario

OSPN responds to Ontario’s cut of the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative

Published June 20, 2024

Published by: Ottawa Science Policy Network
Published on: June 20, 2024

The Ottawa Science Policy Network (OSPN) is concerned with the decision of the Ontario Government to cancel the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative (WSI) in Ontario. This cut of $15 million per year employs researchers, and offers significant returns for public health and safety.

The Wastewater Surveillance Initiative was adopted in January 2021 which led to a team of groundbreaking and internationally recognized work led by scientists at Ontario universities and research institutes. Ontario is a world leader in this field of wastewater research; tracking the impact of COVID-19 on communities through wastewater has helped shape public policy decisions and informed Ontarians of risks within the population. This funding not only provided the necessary means to track COVID-19 levels within the population but was further expanded to screen for Influenza, RSV, and M-Pox. Elizabeth Payne, a correspondent for Ottawa Citizen notes that wastewater surveillance at the start of seasonal RSV prevented 295 pediatric hospitalizations and 950 medically attended hospital visits, saving Ontario $3.5 million.

As of July 31st 2024 the Ontario government will no longer be investing in the Wastewater Surveillance Initiative, mentioning a key reason being that the Federal government will be expanding their program through the Public Health Agency of Canada. However, this leaves research groups and graduate students who rely on Ontario funding in a precarious position as the future of their funding remains uncertain.

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long COVID

Four years on: the career costs for scientists battling long COVID

Published March 18, 2024

Published by: Nature
Published on: March 18, 2024
By Shi En Kim

Abby Koppes got COVID-19 in March 2020, just as the world was waking up to the unprecedented scale on which the virus was spreading. Her symptoms weren’t bad at first. She spent the early lockdown period in Boston, Massachusetts, preparing her tenure application.

During that summer of frenzied writing, Koppes’s symptoms worsened. She often awoke in the night with her heart racing. She was constantly gripped by fatigue, but she brushed off the symptoms as due to work stress. “You gaslight yourself a little bit, I guess,” she says.

Soon after Koppes submitted her tenure application in July, she began experiencing migraines for the first time, which left her bedridden. Her face felt as if it was on fire, a condition called trigeminal neuralgia that’s also known as suicide disease because of the debilitating pain it causes. Specialists took months to diagnose her with a series of grim-sounding disorders: Sjögren’s syndrome, small-fibre polyneuropathy and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. To make time for the litany of doctors’ appointments, Koppes took a six-month “self-care sabbatical.”

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University of Waterloo

UW responds to open letter calling for more robust COVID-19 measures

Published March 8, 2024

Published by: Imprint
Published on: March 8, 2024
By Veronica Reiner

An open letter calling for UW to implement more robust COVID-19 measures has picked up traction, receiving an endorsement from the World Health Network as well as a response from the university.

The letter was addressed to UW senior administration by the COVID Action, Response, and Equity (CARE) Coalition, a group made up of students, faculty, staff and alumni. It has garnered about 150 signatures so far, including UW Climate Justice Ecosystem, the UW QTPOC KW, and the School of Public Health Sciences Graduate Students’ Association.

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universities

Universities need to take lead role in providing COVID-safe learning

Published September 15, 2023

Published by: Policy Options
Published on: September 15, 2023
By Anna Drake, Honor Brabazon, Kristina R. Llewellyn

As a new strain of the virus spreads, regular testing, improved air filtration, masking policies and vaccinations will ensure universities can remain inclusive.

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Montreal

How McGill University is using wastewater testing to get a handle on COVID-19 outbreaks

Published April 8, 2022

Published by: CBC News
Published on: April 8, 2022
By Sarah Leavitt

Since September, the university has been testing wastewater coming from some student residences to get a better sense of the scale of the pandemic on campus and to help administrators adjust measures based on results.

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Tag: universities