{"id":21511,"date":"2021-05-24T23:47:46","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T02:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=21511"},"modified":"2021-05-24T23:47:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T02:47:46","slug":"video-dr-lisa-barrett-answers-our-questions-on-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=21511","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: Dr. Lisa Barrett answers our questions on COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;105&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;127&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>HALIFAX<\/strong>: If Nova Scotia is to remain safe and keep COVID-19 at bay, residents need to make it part of their routine to get tested weekly for the deadly virus, even if they\u2019ve tired of it, says an infectious disease expert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Lisa Barrett spoke to The Laker News in a video interview on May 19. The original scheduled interview had to be postponed after the outbreak at the Halifax Infirmary was announced as she was overseeing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The link to the full interview is below in the story, with excerpts from it making up what our story is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;31&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;34&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With not as many long lines as in weeks before at test sites, Dr. Barrett was asked if the zest for popup testing has worn off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCompared to my targets, which is 2,000 people going through at every popup every day, which is about five per cent of the population,\u201d said Dr. Barrett, \u201cWe\u2019re not there anymore. We were for awhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHaving said that, we\u2019re still ahead of any other province for asymptomatic testing in terms of the numbers being looked at. It\u2019s still finding a good chunk of the cases that we\u2019re seeing in the third wave before they otherwise would have been detected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She thinks people have become fatigued on testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHas the shine worn off? I think people get a bit tired, but it\u2019s like security at the airport, right,\u201d said Dr. Barrett. \u201cYour new Covid security is going to be testing every week for a long time. I think people are coming around to that idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate group=&#8221;6&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Here is the full-length zoom interview with Dr. Lisa Barrett.<\/strong> <em>Video editing by: Dagley Media.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Interview with Dr. Lisa Barrett\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JtKFT0Qicdg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;95&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Barrett said pandemic advice and information changes constantly, so people should be aware of that in regard to the pause on the AstraZeneca vaccine being sued in N.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo me, this wasn\u2019t completely unexpected that the advice was going to change, but it was because the health information around AstraZeneca was changing in real time,\u201d she said. \u201cDoes it mean it\u2019s not effective? Nope, AstraZeneca is effective. Does it mean it\u2019s not safe? It\u2019s certainly a rare side effect that happens. People need to be aware of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe will be protecting peoples second dose and we\u2019ll see what the new study coming out shows about being able to mix and match, and whether you should or shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t feel hoodwinked. Don\u2019t feel you were told to do something that was unsafe, but if there are other options available like other vaccine that don\u2019t have the same side effect, it kind of makes sense to take them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;123&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;92&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She spoke about what is known at this point on the effectiveness of the vaccine against the variants of COVID-19. Dr. Barrett said the question is one that will cause trouble wi9th messaging over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cImmunity and protection are not an on, off switch,\u201d she said. \u201cInstead of like an on\/off light switch, I like to think of it as a dimmer. When you think about that, the variants do dim the response a bit, but they do not seem to affect the ability to protect from death and hospitalization. That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDoes it protect against early or mild infections, we\u2019re not sure yet. There is the chance that over time the vaccines won\u2019t work quite as well against some of the variants. Right now, preventing death and hospitalization is a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt looks like right now that almost all of the vaccines work against the variants in many different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate group=&#8221;7&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When asked about what the latest on whether someone who is vaccinated can still carry the virus and infect someone who isn\u2019t vaccinated, Dr. Barrett said there\u2019s a long and short answer to that. She said to sum it up\u2014even if you\u2019re vaccinated, don\u2019t change anything that you\u2019re doing as you were before getting vaccinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe short answer is that I don\u2019t assume vaccinated people are completely unable to transmit the virus,\u201d said Dr. Barrett. \u201cI do think that they still can a little bit. Vulnerable people at this point include those who aren\u2019t vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;126&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Barrett was asked how she would appeal and speak to those that are not taking our current situation seriously. She called it a tough one for a Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think everyone is doing the best they can right now,\u201d she said. \u201cKeeping to the idea that we\u2019re into a long stretch, hopefully the final laps of this for the next number of months and we can get back to COVID living, won\u2019t be the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI will say that it\u2019s really important to remember that this virus travels without symptoms. You may not know who you are putting in danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think there\u2019s almost no one in the community that can\u2019t understand that there are vulnerable people, even after vaccination, and we need to protect them. The best way to protect them is to take this seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;84&#8243;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;93&#8243;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[adrotate banner=&#8221;105&#8243;] [adrotate banner=&#8221;127&#8243;] HALIFAX: If Nova Scotia is to remain safe and keep COVID-19 at bay, residents need to make it part of their routine to get tested weekly for the deadly virus, even if they\u2019ve tired of it, says an infectious disease expert. Dr. Lisa Barrett spoke to The Laker News in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,957],"tags":[975,2168,50,2169,48,1670],"class_list":["post-21511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","tag-covid19","tag-dr-lisa-barrett","tag-halifax","tag-infectious-disease-expert","tag-n-s","tag-vaccine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}