GUELPH – Just before Christmas of 2019, Dr. Nicola Mercer, medical officer of health (MOH) for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, was briefed about a new virus that was spreading in China.
Ontario’s Chief MOH Dr. David Williams called a meeting of all MOHs in the province to tell them what he knew and help them to get prepared.
Information was scarce. The Chinese government was not disclosing the number of deaths and news was only beginning to trickle to international sources.
“We didn’t know the impact it would have. We didn’t know if it would stay in China. We didn’t even know what it was,” Mercer recalled.
“But very soon into the new year our public health unit went IMS.”
That’s incident management system. It’s the health unit going into emergency mode. It would spend the next four years in IMS.
January 2025 marks five years since that strange virus was identified and COVID-19 spread around the world taking lives in its wake, causing lockdowns, limiting social gatherings and leading to mask mandates.
Mercer talked with the Advertiser about the experience of public health over the past five years, including the lessons learned and the rapid production of mRNA vaccines that helped put an end to the global health emergency.
The agency is only now getting caught up on its other duties – the ones set aside while the entire agency was deployed to duties connected to the pandemic.
Mercer said she started talking to senior leaders of health care organizations in January and February of 2020 to make them aware of the health crisis on the horizon.
“It felt very surreal,” she said. “Nobody envisioned that the world would shut down though, that we’d work from home and close schools. The world had tilted.”
Heath officials could only act on the information they had, however, and as most will recall, that was an ever-changing landscape.
At first, they conducted contact tracing when COVID-19 started to spread in Wellington County.
And they worked with long-term care and congregate care settings on infection control to protect the elderly and most vulnerable.
They opened and operated assessment centres. They did what they could.
“There was no playbook,” Mercer said, “especially that first year.
“I believe we would have had many more deaths without having some safety measures.
“And many people did die – lots of elderly people but young people too, factory workers, regular people who would be alive today except for this new virus.”
As cases grew and spread, Ontario declared a state of emergency on March 17, 2020, and Wellington County and its lower tiers a few days later on March 23.
Public health was at the emergency table in Guelph, Dufferin and Wellington counties as government, hospitals, police, fire and other leaders started to make plans.
Mercer said she thought it would take at least two years before a vaccine would be created so she braced herself for more deaths.
“We had a huge problem – how to minimize deaths while waiting for a vaccine,” she said.
But the mRNA technology that had been long tested was pulled off the shelf, money was pooled internationally, researchers became focused, and a COVID-19 vaccine was created in about a year.
“How the world came together to develop a vaccine – that is a medical miracle,” Mercer said. “And it saved countless lives.”
By January 2021, shots started going in arms. And a majority of people clamoured for them, anxiously waiting for their age group to open up.
Municipalities offered up their community centres and arenas to become vaccines centres. The University of Guelph and Linamar Corporation in Guelph both ran vaccine centres as well in a partnership Mercer called “unique.”
It was a daunting task to vaccinate the 275,000 people in Wellington, Dufferin and Guelph who wanted it, and two doses were required.
The challenge was supply, Mercer said. But as soon as a shipment came in, appointments were set up and the clinics were back in business.
“It was a daunting task,” she said. “I’m very proud of my staff and grateful to the family health teams who ran clinics, Linamar who stepped up and ran with a vaccine clinic, and the University of Guelph, who ran a huge clinic.
“And the municipalities stepped up, too. We even vaccinated people in their cars.
“We have much to be proud of. Those vaccines were a godsend. They made all the difference.”
With her authority as medical officer of health, Mercer ordered mask mandates a week or two before the province did.
“I wouldn’t change what I did … I would have liked it earlier, to be honest, especially in long-term care. But we didn’t have a supply of masks,” she said.
Mercer said there have been some lessons learned, especially with regard to reopening businesses.
“I believe we could have had not as many closures after the vaccines were available. [The closures] really impacted people’s lives. I think we could have kept some businesses open and still kept people safe.
“We’ll do better next time,” she said, shuddering at the thought of a “next time.”
Mercer also took part in monthly public webinars with Helen Fishburn, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo Wellington, and Guelph family doctor Anne-Marie Zajdlik.
With their combined expertise, they tackled questions about mental health, population health and individual health, encouraging people to keep calm, keep safe and remain hopeful during a time of anxiety and fear.
“Hundreds, if not thousands of people attended those webinars. Kudos to Anne-Marie for setting that up,” Mercer said.
The pandemic taught the world many things. It’s possible to work from home and Zoom and Teams and other meeting platforms won’t be going away any time soon.
Because of that, many people stay home when they’re not feeling well or wear a mask if they have to go out.
And the mRNA technology proved itself effective and safe, Mercer said, adding the technology may find a vaccine for certain forms of cancer and other deadly diseases.
She hopes people will remember the vaccine lesson and get annual flu and COVID shots going forward as both continue to circulate in the community.
“It brought us future-forward,” Mercer said of the pandemic. “Vaccines and online advances came fast-forward by a decade.”
