QUESTION PERIOD — Health
COVID-19 Pandemic--Long-Term Effects
April 26, 2022
Honourable senators, my question is for Senator Gold.
As this pandemic has unfolded, we are coming to understand that the COVID virus has both immediate and long-term negative impacts on health. “Long COVID” is a phrase that has now entered our vocabulary. Early studies suggest that substantive numbers of those who contract COVID can develop long COVID, even those who had mild cases. Recently, I spoke with Nobel Prize nominee Dr. Peter Hotez about the need to better understand the emerging impacts of the neurodegenerative effects of long COVID, including higher rates of dementia, Parkinson’s disease and mental illnesses, to name a few. Others have raised similar concerns about negative long-term cardiac and vascular impacts.
Simply put, we are facing an anticipated deluge of serious and expensive health impacts of long COVID, including in children, and we have limited knowledge about its epidemiology, pathoetiology and potential treatment.
What is the Canadian government doing right now to ensure that we have a comprehensive, integrated national strategy to improve our understanding and treatment of long COVID?
Thank you, senator, for your question and for underlining this important issue.
The government recognizes that we are faced with a situation where some who have contracted COVID-19 are facing a very long recovery. I’m advised that the government is actively working with national and international experts to build the evidence base on post-COVID-19 condition, to support Canadians who are experiencing those longer-term effects. Increasing our understanding of COVID, of course, is key to addressing and recovering from the pandemic.
To that end, since March 2020 the Government of Canada has invested more than $250 million in critical areas of COVID-19 research. It’s also investing an additional $119 million in COVID-19 research, including funding further studies to better understand post-COVID-19 condition.
Earlier this week, colleagues, the government announced it is launching a second cycle of the Canadian COVID-19 Antibody and Health Survey led by Statistics Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, which aims to better understand the impacts of the pandemic on the health and well-being of Canadians.
That’s all good news, Senator Gold, and we’re very pleased that those things have started, but long COVID is probably going to be a multi-generational problem. Our country is taking steps forward, but we can’t do it alone. We really need to partner with other countries that have substantial research components, such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Australia.
What is the government doing to ensure that those partnerships can happen?
As I said, senator, the Government of Canada is working with national and international experts.
With regard to your specific question, I’ll certainly make inquiries and I would be happy to report back.
