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Interview with Dr. Caroline Quach: 3 years of the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec
Dr. Caroline Quach is a microbiologist-infectiologist, pediatrician, and physician in charge of the infection prevention and control unit at CHU Sainte-Justine. PHOTO : Radio-Canada / Marie-Eve Cloutier
Exactly three years ago, Prime Minister François Legault announced, during a press conference, the suspension of Quebec for a period of two weeks. Two days earlier, the World Health Organization had declared that COVID-19 had now reached pandemic level, just three months after the first cases of this new coronavirus were discovered. Dr. Caroline Quach has a rather vague memory of the day of March 13, 2020. “We were caught up in the preparations at the hospital level”, argues the head of the Infection Prevention and Control Unit at the CHU Sainte-Justine. At the microphone of Patrick Masbourian, she talks about the lessons learned from the pandemic over the past three years.
Today, health measures are still visible in hospitals. On the other hand, questions related to COVID-19 are less frequent. SARS-CoV-2 is one respiratory virus among others. This is one of the reasons why herd immunity is impossible to achieve against the coronavirus.
For Dr. Quach, it is not so much discovering the origin of SARS-CoV-2 that is important as preparing for what comes next.
« Regardless of the source, we must be able to detect the warning signs of a pandemic. »
Listen to the segment to find out why the microbiologist-infectious disease specialist believes we will see another pandemic in our lifetime.