'It’s foolish to predict anything': York Region’s top doctor talks about battling COVID-19 in 2020

Medical officer of health Dr. Karim Kurji sees the light at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 4, 2021
Amanda Persico

While COVID-19 dominated headlines locally, provincially, nationally and globally, York Region residents came to rely on the numbers reported by York Region Public Health and the decrees imposed to keep us safe.

Behind the swath of close contact managers, data collectors and COVID-19 safety measure communicators is York Region’s medical officer of health, Dr. Karim Kurji.

With a background in community medicine, Kurji has become the masked face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re learning how to fly while we still build the COVID-19 plane,” he said.

Instead of making predictions, Kurji prefers to learn from the mistakes and move forward with a nimble and precise, yet flexible, approach.

“It’s foolish to predict anything,” he said. “We’re always proven wrong. We have to move along using blunt instruments and look at what’s around the corner.”

Blunt instruments, in this case, have included imposing orders on York Region residents and businesses, from mandatory masks and capacity limits to laying charges and imposing fines.

During the SARS outbreak -- another widespread, communicable respiratory virus -- Kurji was working behind the scenes at the provincial level, under the then-Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

Armed with expertise and knowledge, and having seen the devastation caused by SARS, COVID-19 still presented a number of disastrous surprises to Kurji.

“The coronavirus did not behave as we expected it to behave,” Kurji said. “(COVID-19) took a larger toll and the usual control measures were not working.”

The control measures Kurji talks about include case management and infectious disease prevention protocols.

“SARS was largely confined to hospitals,” Kurji said. “This time, we needed a different magnitude of measures. COVID-19 has spread much further into the community. Lockdowns were a new dimension.”

Unlike the SARS outbreak, during which Kurji did lose hope, York Region’s top medical officer can see the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel.

“Now, we have the luxury of tests,” he said.

And vaccines.

SARS was predominately a North American problem. COVID-19 is an international issue, meaning more resources, more expertise and more out-of-the box thinking, he added.

And that’s not to say York Region’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t without its heartbreaking failures.

“COVID-19 was a danger to long-term-care facilities,” Kurji said. “Look how (rapidly) it spread and what a toll it took -- all those lives.”