COVID-19: Canucks’ outbreak a story about the importance of masks
The way a COVID-19 variant ripped through the Vancouver Canucks since March 30 is yet another reminder of the importance of wearing a mask to protect yourself and others from infection.
Canucks players were on the ice without masks while interacting with Adam Gaudette, the initial positive case, before he tested positive. They did so again the next day when Gaudette was pulled off the ice mid-practice after his positive result was delivered to the team.
It’s an issue that Canucks team doctor Dr. Jim Brovard acknowledged in a media session conducted Friday over Zoom.
“In terms of masks, we know that part of this with the players going back and doing their job where they can’t wear a mask, they don’t physically distance, that that is going against two of our basic weapons we have to protect ourselves against COVID,” Brovard said.
Among the evidence that masks do work is the fact that there were many support staff around positive players on the Tuesday and Wednesday before their game against the Calgary Flames was postponed, but to date just one has tested positive. And it’s unlikely, given everyone involved has been in isolation for more than a week now, that any further positive tests will be returned.
The CAN95 masks the team has been wearing are supplied by Burnaby manufacturer
Vitacore Industries
, which has been producing masks and respirators suitable for medical and front-line workers.
“Obviously, we think that it’s great that our product can can prove itself. However, my first thought, when being from Canada or being from Vancouver and being a Canucks fan, was just really concerned for the players and concern for their families,” Mikhail Moore, Vitacore’s president, told Postmedia this week.
Moore and his partners launched the company last summer when he realized how badly Canada needed a more robust supply of personal protective equipment, especially when it came to high-quality masks to protect against transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19. It was personal experience that taught him about Canada’s need for more PPE, as his wife is a nurse who is also immunocompromised.
“PPE is something that I was familiar with, even before the pandemic, and just understanding contact precautions. And so making sure that we’re serving Canadian workers first, this is something we really want to do,” Moore said.
Vitacore is producing eight million masks per month at its Burnaby factory, the vast majority their CAN99 respirators, which filter the air even better than the standard N95 masks medical workers require. Vitacore’s CAN95, which are equivalent to N95 masks, were the first Canadian-made masks to be approved by Health Canada.
No one in Canada was producing N95-quality masks and Canadian hospitals and other medical operations were struggling to secure enough supply from overseas, Moore said.
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Vitacore worked with scientists, medical professionals and engineers to design their CAN99 respirator, the first of its kind to be made and approved in Canada.
Normally, Canadian approval for these kinds of masks follows approval by the U.S.’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, but with borders closed they couldn’t initially get the CAN95 mask tested down south. With the help of McMaster University in Hamilton and the National Research Council, Vitacore was able to get its products approved by Health Canada.
The CAN99 respirator has since been assessed by NIOSH.
“All credit to our team, they actually came up with quite an amazing product. We actually got tested by NIOSH … and the results of that came back as us having the highest level of filtration,” he said.
They’re supplying most of the NHL teams in Canada with respirators.
pjohnston@postmedia.com
twitter.com/risingaction
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