Canada is shifting to 'living with the virus' — for better or worse

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Canada's pandemic response is rapidly shifting toward "learning to live with the virus" — where COVID-19 is eventually treated like other seasonal illnesses, surveillance is massively scaled back and public health measures are widely lifted.

But as some provinces move closer to easing restrictions after facing the deadliest month of the pandemic since COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, there appears to be a dramatic divide on what living with the virus actually means — and how it will work.

​​Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Friday Canada needs to find a more "sustainable" way to deal with the pandemic and all existing public health policies, including provincial vaccine passports, need to be "re-examined" in the coming weeks. 

"What we need to do going forward, as we emerge out of this Omicron wave, is recognize this virus is not going to disappear," she said. "We do need to get back to some normalcy." 

But even with record-high hospitalizations and ICU admissions that are only now beginning to show signs of declining nationally, public health officials and politicians across the country have already embraced this new pandemic strategy as they gear up to lift restrictions.

Saskatchewan pivoted to living with the virus on Thursday by announcing further limits to PCR testing, ending the sharing of daily COVID-19 data and stopping the investigation of most outbreaks outside of hospitals and long-term care.

The shift came after Premier Scott Moe released a letter last Saturday lending support to protesters in Ottawa demanding an end to all vaccine mandates or a change in government, while also inaccurately claiming "vaccination is not reducing transmission."

But while two-dose effectiveness has been significantly reduced against Omicron, there is growing evidence that boosters still hold up well against infection, severe illness and death.

Moe's comments are a huge shift in messaging from what he said just a few months ago, when the premier openly criticized the unvaccinated and imposed mandatory masking and proof of vaccination policies during a devastating fourth wave. 

"As a government, we have been patient with those who have chosen to remain unvaccinated," he said on Sept. 16. "But the time for patience is over." 

Fast forward to today, and while Saskatchewan has left current restrictions like mask mandates and vaccine certificates in place for now, Moe has hinted they won't last long — and he's not alone.

"For better or for worse, this is what's going to happen across the whole country," said Dr. Alexander Wong, an infectious diseases physician at Regina General Hospital and associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan. 

"The question is, why are we in such a rush to do all of this? It's clearly political."