Board of Health Dec 9 Meeting Summary
Written by Communications, December 11, 2020
Board of Health membership update
Board chair Andy Mitchell bid farewell to City Councillor Kim Zippel as her two-year term is wrapping up as a municipal representative. She was commended for her active service on the Board of Health.
Update: Anti-idling Report
As a follow up request from the last Board of Health meeting, Dr. Salvaterra noted that recommendations regarding the use of zoning bylaws to reduce drive-through restaurants were included in Peterborough Public Health’s 2018 submission to City’s Official Plan Review. The submission included links to sample by-laws used in other municipalities to limit drive-throughs in order to improve air quality.
Food Literacy for Students Act – Bill 216
Bill 216 Food Literacy for Students Act, 2020, passed second reading on October 20, 2020 and proposes to amend the Ontario Education Act to introduce experiential food literacy and healthy eating training as a mandatory component of school curricula for students from grades 1 to 12. If passed, Bill 216 will ensure that all children and youth attending Ontario schools will develop vital skills to inform food choices throughout their lives. Food literacy is broader than food skills and is considered a fundamental competency for healthy eating. It is defined as “a set of skills and attributes that help people sustain the daily preparation of healthy, tasty, affordable meals for themselves and their families; it builds resilience, because it includes food skills (techniques, knowledge and planning ability), the confidence to improvise and problem-solve, the ability to access and share information; and it requires external support with healthy food access and living conditions, broad learning opportunities, and positive socio-cultural environments”. The Board of Health endorsed Bill 216 and will send correspondence to the Ontario government accordingly.
COVID-19 Update
Dr. Salvaterra provided an update on the current status of the pandemic using data from www.localcovidtracker.ca. Our region remains in the yellow zone according to the Ontario COVID-19 framework. She noted that those aged 60 to 90 years and older represent 61 of our total cases to date, and those aged 20-49 years account for 121, or more than half, of our cases to date. Half of these, or 65 cases, have been in residents aged 20-29. We continue to be busy on the enforcement front, with more than 219 complaints followed up on by Public Health Inspectors in the month of November. The most common complaint is the lack of mask use by the public and staff in local businesses. Case and contact management performance remains strong, with 100% of confirmed cases followed up within 24 hours. In late November, there was an average of 4.8 close contacts per case.
This morning Health Canada approved the first COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech. It is a two-dose vaccine, by intramuscular injection into the upper arm muscle, given a minimum of 21 days apart. Now that the vaccine is approved, there will be greater access to safety and efficacy details from both Health Canada and the National Advisory Committee on Immunizations, which is expected to release its statement on this vaccine shortly.
According to the manufacturer’s media release, its phase three clinical trial demonstrated a vaccine efficacy of 95%, with consistent efficacy across age, gender, and ethnicity. The observed efficacy in adults over 65 years of age was 94%. Immunity begins to increase as early as 10 days following the first dose and a single dose could have a efficacy of 52%. It is important to remember that there are 44,000 people aged 18 to 85 years enrolled in that trial, which is continuing. We will learn more about this vaccine, the duration of its effect and whether or not it will require booster doses as time goes on. Each province and territory will develop its own list of priority populations to receive the vaccine. More will be known about its safety as more doses are administered and post-marketing surveillance occurs.
Next meeting:
The Board of Health meets next on Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 5:30 p.m. The location will either be virtual or in the Anstruther Lake, Buckhorn Lake and Chemong Lake Rooms, second floor, Peterborough Public Health, 185 King St., Peterborough, Ontario.
Please click here for a list of Board of Health meeting dates and location details.