Hutterite Communities : Living COVID Transmission Laboratories

"The question we need to ask is, 'What are a minority of our people doing that brings suffering like this upon the rest of us'?"
"Such situations are a golden opportunity to be a light to the world and show mainstream society that we have many great people among us."
Hutterian Safety Council

"We can answer a lot of questions [in Hutterite colonies] that can't be answered in mainstream communities. [This is] knowledge that couldn't be obtained anywhere else."
"It's a very giving culture. There is a generosity of spirit [here]."
Dr.Mark Loeb, infectious disease professor, McMaster University

Members of the Box Elder Hutterite Colony stand on the headers of eight combines just before they start to combine what is left of the 20,000 acres of barley they were harvesting near Tregarva, Sask. in September 2008. Don Healy/Leader-Post

Founded in 16th century Switzerland together with Mennonites and Amish, Hutterites represent a branch of the Anabaptist movement of Protestanism. All of these minority breakaway groups were historically persecuted throughout Europe, inspiring them to self-exile when they moved to North America in the late 1800s. There they found freedom in the establishment of limited colonies of 100 souls, living remote from others in the mainstream community. Hutterites have a unique mode of dress and most are involved in farming and in small-scale manufacturing.

A number of Hutterite colonies located in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have had outbreaks recently of COVID-19 infections, as well as several deaths resulting from COVID. Where in the general community within which their remote and isolated communities exist the incidents of COVID have receded in numbers, in the Hutterite communities they have proliferated. Speculation is that communal meals and prayer, traditions within the community, may prove to have been a factor in the infection rate.

Which led to the Hutterian Safety Council identifying for censure some of the community members for having visited doctors without divulging they were ill; not observing social distancing; and travelling outside their colony for non-essential purposes. The premier of Saskatchewan spoke of imposing travel restrictions to and from the colonies in an effort to curb the cornavirus spread, at the same time cautioning against stigmatizing the communities.

A research project is in the planning stages to view the religious group as a living laboratory, a potential source of vital new information about the coronavirus. McMaster University intends to study the small, self-contained colonies with a view to examining the critical issue of herd immunity related to COVID-19 transmission. Earlier research on flu within the communities could serve as a platform on which to mount this new study.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has funded the proposed study with a $1.5-million award. The study now awaits a go-ahead from the University of Alberta which is partnering with McMaster, along with formal consent from the twenty colonies chosen by the team to be part of the study. Dr. Loeb, tagged to lead the study is familiar with the colonies' residents from the flu study, considering them to be "extraordinarily generous" to visiting scientists, in his decades-long association with them.

Laboratory technical assistant, LifeLabs, THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The makeup of the communities is unique; small, manageable populations, the colonies are isolated from the outside world, thus becoming the ideal laboratory where the vital issue of herd immunity can be studied to determine how respiratory viruses behave on a community-wide basis. The earlier study dating from 2010 examined the effect immunizing children within the community at ages three to 15, impacted on community members at large.

Communities whose children received flu shots irrespective of whether or not the population was vaccinated, were 60 percent less likely to harbour the virus in comparison to those colonies that received Hepatitis A vaccine, used as a control group. Confirming the herd effect of immunizing children against flu. The study was noted at the time by Dr.Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S.National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who praised it as a "really nice study".

As schools prepare to re-open, the research will study the role children play in COVID-19 transmission. "Findings from this cohort study will inform policy-makers about the determinants of community transmission", noted the grant description meant for the attention of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

A tradition of communal meals and prayer is considered a likely factor in recent COVID-19 outbreaks among Canada's Hutterite communities. Jordan Verlage/The Canadian Press/File