Author: UBC Abbotsford-Mission Family Practice Residency Program

Why is this conference important and why is it relevant to you?

The World Health Organization has stated that the climate crisis is the biggest health concern of the 21st century–and the Lancet has said that fighting climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity. If we do not make major changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next 10 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts catastrophic effects on the environment and human health. This conference will inspire us all in our health care roles to better understand these issues and advocate for necessary systemic change.

Register here for the October 30, 2020 event.

I also want to encourage you to check out the Virtual Showcase which is accepting submissions until September 25.

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Register at www.whri.org.

“Students, staff, and visitors at UBC will be required to wear non-medical masks when indoors on campus as of Wednesday, September 16.

The school’s previous policy ‘strongly recommended’ the use of masks.

‘UBC is implementing a new measure to help limit COVID-19,’ Santa J. Ono, president and vice-chancellor, says in a release.

‘The health and safety of the UBC community is our first priority, and we continue to monitor COVID-19 and follow effective safety practices as understanding of the virus evolves. The requirement to wear non-medical masks indoors recognizes that transmission is reduced when face masks are worn in conjunction with physical distancing and other safety practices.'”

Read more here.

#UBC #WearAMask

“Most scientists and health authorities support wearing non-medical face masks in public to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. A team of UBC researchers led by Steven Rogak, a professor of mechanical engineering who studies aerosols, and Dr. Jane Wang, a clinical instructor in the faculty of medicine, decided to test the most popular types of mask fabrics to find out how well they filtered particles while remaining breathable.

How do DIY masks stack up against commercial non-medical masks?

Rogak: Our results showed that a mask with two layers of low-thread-count quilting cotton is both comfortable and breathable. In fact, such a mask with an added three-ply dried baby wipe filter was as effective as a commercial non-surgical mask at stopping particles, and almost as breathable. It filtered out up to 80 per cent of 3-micron particles, and more than 90 per cent of 10-micron particles.

Wang: The COVID-19 particle is only around 0.1 micron in size, but it is always attached to something larger, like the droplets produced by breathing, talking and coughing, which are typically larger than 5 microns. An N95 mask can filter most particles 0.3 microns or larger, but even an N95 mask is going to take in large, massive droplets with lots of viruses if it does not seal against the face. A well-fitted, well-designed cloth mask with a baby-wipe filter will be more effective at filtering 5- or 10-micron particles than a poorly fitted N95 mask.”

Learn more about their findings here on UBC researchers run tests to find best materials and styles for face masks via UBC News.

“Help children understand that by doing these things, they can help keep everyone safe.”

As our children return back to school, here are a couple of great resources you may want to peruse:

Preparing children for back-to-school during the COVID-19 pandemic by Dr. Laura Sauvé Paediatric Infectious Diseases Specialist via BC Children’s Hospital.

COVID-19 and children prepared by the BC Centre for Disease Control.

“The myths have been disproven. Unfortunately, the loudest voices in the cannabis debate often are people who have political or financial skin in the game, and the two sides are entrenched. Pro-cannabis people will say that cannabis is the greatest medication ever, and harmless. Others — often in the same field that I’m in, people who treat patients, people who do research with cannabis — will at times misrepresent the facts as well. They will go into a room of 100 or 200 high schoolers and relay the message that cannabis is as dangerous as fentanyl. That’s not true either. These camps seem to feel that even a single shred of evidence that runs counter to their narrative hurts them. So at the end of the day, a lot of what people hear about cannabis is either incomplete or flat-out wrong because both sides are promoting polar opposite views of cannabis.”

Learn more on What We Know and Don’t Know About Pot (interview with Dr. Kevin Hill) via Harvard Health & Medicine Gazette.

Additional info here on Medical Marijuana by Dr. Peter Grinspoon via Harvard Health Blog.

CPD Online Modules: Cannabis Education for Health Care Providers via UBC.

Cue the Jeopardy theme song.

“What is….”

Click here to answer.

#TheLancet #PictureQuiz

“Since mid-May 2020, CDC has been tracking reports of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a rare but serious condition associated with COVID-19. MIS-C is a new syndrome, and many questions remain about why some children develop it after a COVID-19 illness or contact with someone with COVID-19, while others do not.

As of 8/20/2020, CDC has received reports of 694 confirmed cases of MIS-C and 11 deaths in 42 states, New York City, and Washington, DC. Additional cases are under investigation.

• Most cases are in children between the ages of 1 and 14 years, with an average age of 8 years.
• Cases have occurred in children from <1 year old to 20 years old.
• More than 70% of reported cases have occurred in children who are Hispanic/Latino (239 cases) or Non-Hispanic Black (197 cases).
• 99% of cases (687) tested positive for SARS CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The remaining 1% were around someone with COVID-19.
• Most children developed MIS-C 2-4 weeks after infection with SARS-CoV-2.
• Slightly more than half (55%) of reported cases were male.”

More here on Health Department-Reported Cases of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) in the United States ​via CDC.

According to B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, “B.C. has had eight suspected cases but none of the children tested positive for COVID-19, had COVID-19 antibodies or had known exposures to COVID-19 cases.”  More here on B.C. sheds new light on where and how COVID-19 is spreading, as health officials announce 68 new cases via CBC.

“The widespread lack of an efficient medical recycling system represents a part of the bigger problem with the industry as a whole. In a commentary on healthcare’s role in the global climate crisis, Yale School of Medicine associate professor of anaesthesiology Jodi Sherman called environmental sustainability an ‘unappreciated dimension of health quality care’. She and her co-authors also pointed out that traditional assessments in the successes or failures in the healthcare system as a whole have yet to factor in the cost of pollution both up and downstream of the industry’s supply chain, from resource extraction to disposal management.

With medical waste currently more visible than ever, researchers are calling for healthcare’s waste and environmental footprint to be brought up the agenda. ‘Coronavirus could well become a catalyst, because people may realise that by degrading our environment, we could find that we are getting more and more of these types of diseases,’ says Roschnik.

‘Do we as a people want to live this way? Or do we say: if we want to be healthy, our planet needs to be healthy – and it’s incumbent on all of us to do something about it.’”

More here on How do you fix healthcare’s medical waste problem? via BBC.