The Covid Pandemic in Canada: Seen Five Years Later…for…The 2nd Edition of Metropolis Social Determinants of Health

December 11, 2024

On December 12, 2019 a cluster of patients in China’s Hubei Province, in the city of Wuhan, begin to experience the symptoms of an atypical pneumonia-like illness that does not respond well to standard treatments. December 31, 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) in China is informed of several cases of a pneumonia of unknown cause with symptoms including shortness of breath and fever occurring in Wuhan, China. The virus soon spread across the world, and by March 2020, the WHO designated it  a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Many governments, Canada included imposed restrictions aimed as stopping its spread (i.e. lockdowns, mask wearing, large gathering limits and quarantines for those infected. After three years, the official WHO death toll from the virus neared seven million people (though believe the actual number is  much higher). The economic consequences were seen as the worst since the Great Depression, with global supply-chain and labor-force disruptions. Yet it is saw the quickest production of vaccines.