Five years later, COVID-19 continues to leave its mark on Albertans
Doctors worry patients with long COVID may be overlooked as crisis fades
Five years after the province identified its first COVID-19 case, Albertans are being urged not to lose sight of those still struggling with its devastating impacts.
In a moment few Albertans will forget, Dr. Deena Hinshaw — Alberta's then chief medical officer of health — took to the podium on March 5, 2020, to announce that a woman in her 50s had tested positive after returning from a cruise.
It was the province's first presumptive COVID-19 case.
Since then, 6,691 Albertans have died due to the illness. And while deaths and hospitalizations have dropped significantly, COVID-19 continues to kill hundreds of Albertans every year.
"This is not a disease that has come and gone. It's unfortunately something that's left its mark on Alberta," said Craig Jenne, professor in the department of microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Calgary.
"The pandemic has ended but, unfortunately, the endemic stage has now begun. And this is a virus that we're going to have to deal with basically every year moving forward."
And while many expected SARS-CoV-2 would eventually become a seasonal virus, similar to influenza, that hasn't truly happened.
"It's not like the flu," said Sarah Otto, a professor at the University of British Columbia who specializes in mathematical modelling.
"It's so transmissible and so easy to get that people are getting it … multiple times a year."
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Otto, an evolutionary biologist, is one of several Canadian scientists tracking COVID-19 variants.
"We're not seeing it go away in the summer. It goes through these little undulations as new variants evolve and we see a little uptick. But then people's immunity builds and it goes down again. And that's happening year after year."
Prior to the pandemic, the leading cause of death due to infectious diseases in Canada was influenza, according to Jenne.
That has changed.
"Last year alone, COVID killed more than four times as many Albertans as flu," said Jenne, who is also the deputy director of the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases.
"[It] continues to be a significant threat to people that have underlying health conditions, older and — to a certain extent — younger Albertans."
Long COVID continues
And the pandemic has left another mark: long COVID.
Estimates about its prevalence vary, but according to a national survey involving Statistics Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, 19 per cent of Canadians infected with SARS-CoV-2 reported experiencing long-term symptoms (for three or more months) in 2023.
"As of June 2023, about 100,000 Canadian adults have been unable to return to work or school because of their symptoms," the report said.
The most common symptoms reported are fatigue, brain fog and shortness of breath.
But other problems can occur as well, according to doctors, including uncontrolled and rapid increases in heart rate, known as tachycardia. It can be triggered by activities as simple as standing up and walking into another room.
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Prior to the pandemic, Dr. Satish Raj, a Calgary-based cardiologist, was already treating patients with similar problems after viral infections. The condition is known as POTS.
"What was different about COVID wasn't that this type of thing had never happened before, but that it had never happened before on the scale, societally, as it happened with COVID," said Raj, a University of Calgary professor and medical director of the Calgary autonomic investigation and management clinic.
He estimates five to 10 per cent of Albertans have ongoing symptoms after a COVID infection, and up to two per cent are so debilitated they can't go to work or school.
His waitlist has grown since COVID-19 hit and is now close to two years.
"In our desire to move on and get past it, I think we're forgetting some of the people who have been wounded by it," said Raj.
"We're not necessarily showing a commitment to providing the resources to help them to continue to be part of society."
Last year, Alberta Health Services shuttered its long COVID outpatient program, which provided multi-disciplinary specialized care.
Care is less co-ordinated now, said Raj.
"I think there's a major domino effect by getting rid of those clinics — not just for the patients for whom they're caring — but as an information resource for physician and providers."
In a statement, Alberta Health Services said most people can manage symptoms at home and people should start by contacting their primary care provider or Health Link for support.
Meanwhile, with testing no longer easily accessible to the public, confirming a diagnosis of long COVID is increasingly difficult, according to Dr. Grace Lam, a University of Alberta respirologist.
"It makes it really quite challenging to pin down how many Albertans are still suffering with this or are newly developing this at this point."
Lam, who also treats long COVID patients, worries about people being infected multiple times.
"With repeated infections, your risk of long COVID does increase," she said.
But there is hope, according to Lam, who said clinical trials are exploring treatment options.
Meanwhile, reflecting on the past five years, Jenne pointed to what he sees as key achievements, including global surveillance and co-operation that led to the rapid development and deployment of vaccines.
"We were able to dramatically impact the number of lives lost," he said.
"There's a lot of lessons in there as we move forward knowing that, unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before another virus shows up and creates a significant public health threat."
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