November

At its meeting held 10–11 September 2020, the Doctors of BC Board of Directors approved appointments to the new Diversity Working Group created to provide input into implementation of recommendations from the Doctors of BC Diversity and Inclusion Barrier Assessment report and develop a high-level diversity vision statement for Doctors of BC.

Members of the working group are:

Meaningful community collaboration in research, as we know it today, started during the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a grassroots movement to gain an equal voice at the table of scientific discovery. Today, participatory health research, community advisory boards, and knowledge translation are common buzzwords that look attractive to grant reviewers and journal editors. However, community partnerships cannot be reduced to mere tokenism or committee meetings.

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As the COVID-19 pandemic surged in the spring, BC proactively suspended in-class instruction for kindergarten to grade 12 (school closures) to delay and flatten the outbreak peak, reduce the burden on the health care system, and protect high-risk populations.[1,2] School closure is an intervention for influenza outbreaks based on evidence that children are more infectious and susceptible to influenza than adults.[3] However, the effectiveness of school closures for influenza outbreaks is not clear, and schools are not routinely closed in

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An outbreak of severe pulmonary illness associated with vaping (the act of inhaling an aerosol produced by an electronic cigarette or related product) was first reported in the United States in August 2019, and a retrospective review has identified cases as early as April 2019.[1] To determine if vaping was associated with lung illness in British Columbia, in September 2019, the Provincial Health Officer declared “severe pulmonary disease associated with vaping or dabbing,” generally referred to as vaping-associated lung injury, or VALI, a reportable illness.

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The COVID-19 pandemic was probably caused by our use of animals. Although the precise origins are unclear, the evidence we have to date indicates that the virus likely originated in wild animals that were brought to a market to be sold and used as meat or traditional medicine.[1] The risks of this happening again have been widely recognized, and there has been public outcry against live animal markets in China.

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