Do As I Say : Don't Look At Me!

"A bonspiel is not an essential activity."

"I know our health-care providers are under a lot of pressure and scrutiny right now, but hard not to wonder why this event took place."

Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in health law and policy, professor, faculties of law and public health, University of Alberta

"There have been no deaths linked to this bonspiel. No patients have tested positive with COVID-19 to date."

"At this time, no other patients appear to have been exposed from cases to the bonspiel."

"[Any disciplinary action would be from the provincial physicians' colleges; the focus is on] caring for patients."

"It is not on disciplining physicians, particularly at a time when we need them the most."

Alberta government statement

Curling rocks are shown Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, during a media demonstration the day before the opening ceremonies of the USA Curling Nationals in Everett, Wash. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Ted S. Warren)

We are so hugely -- as a public faced with the fears of an infectious global pandemic that has skulked its way into Canada from its emergent home in Wuhan, China -- dependent on the army of skilled medical professionals to care for us in illness and restore us to health, if and when possible. Physicians, secure in their professional knowledge, their practised experience, their diagnostic and healing skills, are the most trusted group of professionals the world over. For the most part, they earn that trust.

But as humans with all the failings of any human being they can at times spectacularly fail that trust.

And this is precisely what occurred when a decision was made to proceed with an annual curling event that brings together health professionals from the Western provinces of Canada. Where, despite knowing that COVID-19 has a swift and deadly spread, and to deter that spread as much as possible people should maintain a safe distance from others to self-protect and protect others from the highly infectious novel coronavirus, 72 people with medical degrees chose to attend the event.

Now three of the attendees from Alberta are known to have become infected with the virus at the tournament that took place in Edmonton. Before they became aware that they were infected, and thus vectors, they had contact with patients and with their colleagues. Twelve in fact, of the 47 Alberta health care workers at the bonspiel which took place between March 11 and 14, tested positive for COVID-19. A situation that calls for them to self-isolate for at least two weeks, placing them outside the health-care system as patients, not as badly-needed practitioners.

Three of the twelve -- physicians in Red Deer, Alberta -- had physical contact with patients and co-workers so that 58 patients were attended to during the course of normal medical business by the doctors involved before they became symptomatic. Add other possible infections counting the 97 other health professionals these doctors' indiscretion may have contaminated. And if so, unbeknownst to those 97, their contact with their own patients would have rippled beyond the initial contact. This is how contamination spirals.

This situation was first brought to light when Dr.Allan Woo, head of the Saskatchewan Medical Association publicly revealed that he had been infected with the novel coronavirus due to his attendance at the bonspiel in Edmonton. Now, Saskatchewan has announced that 11 of their 22 health professionals attending the event also tested positive for COVID-19. Three doctors in Manitoba are self-isolating, having attended the event. 

Well, so much for the wisdom of doctors. And wait, other medical professionals as well have proven to be as unwary -- as when earlier in the month the Pacific Dental Conference that took place in Vancouver at which close to 15,000 dentists and hygienists attended also appears to have resulted in a COVID-19 outbreak. Reports of infections are beginning to emerge, one in particular, the death of a dentist who attended that event.

Two people from the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine tested positive for COVID-19 after attending an Edmonton curling bonspiel that played host to more than 50 physicians last weekend, the university said in an email to faculty and students Friday. The University of Calgary is pictured on Tuesday February 26, 2019. Gavin Young/Postmedia