The B.C. government opened applications April 6 for its first round of research funding to help find answers to the spread and control of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Health Minister Adrian Dix established a dedicated research fund at the request of Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer tasked with managing the novel coronavirus spread in the population. Priorities include impacts on rural populations and B次元官网网址渞apid evaluation of public health countermeasuresB次元官网网址� that have reduced economic activity to and emptied 40 per cent of B.C.B次元官网网址檚 acute care beds to make room for potential serious illness cases.
Henry said the fund of B次元官网网址渁t least $2 millionB次元官网网址� is administered by the Micheal Smith Foundation for Health Research, which has been working with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control on the outbreak since early January. Projects already underway include tracking infection spread to add to B.C.B次元官网网址檚 COVID-19 modelling and developing a test to see who has been exposed and who may be immune in the B.C. population.
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Measuring the effectiveness of business controls and travel restrictions is a high priority.
B次元官网网址淗ow well are we doing with the things that we have put in place like travel restrictions, like the cancelling of in-classroom teaching in schools, like the distancing measures that we have been puting in place across society and understanding which of these measures works in which scenarios, and how well they work,B次元官网网址� Henry said.
HenryB次元官网网址檚 predecessor as provincial health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, has also returned from retirement to join an advisory committee to guide the new research. The advisory group is led by Dr. David Patrick, a physician epidemiologist who works at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and at UBC.
The four projects already funded by the also include developing a vaccine for COVID-19 in conjunction with federal and international researchers, and understanding the impact of what the World Health Organization has described as an B次元官网网址渋nfodemicB次元官网网址� of disinformation about the origin and nature of the virus that emerged from Wuhan, China late in 2019.
tfletcher@blackpress.ca
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