Public health pandemic ‘alert’ system didn’t operate as intended for COVID-19: report
- Advertisement -
An interim examination of the failure by the federal government’s pandemic early warning system to send up a formal alert on COVID-19 has been released.
The audit was ordered by federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu in response to reports that the Global Public Health Intelligence Network didn’t operate as intended at the onset of the pandemic.
The interim report concludes that the news monitoring system did identify the outbreak of the pneumonia that would become COVID-19 on the night of Dec. 30, 2019, and included this information in a special report to Canadian public health officials the next day.
But the report notes that, in the absence of a formal alert, international partners relying on Canada’s information were left in the dark.
The review says that prior to the pandemic, the alert system lacked standard operating procedures and senior managers didn’t fully understand the “purpose or audience” for alerts.
The panel will continue its review in the coming months by looking deeper into how the system operates, its high staff turnover and the decline in the number of internal experts with public health credentials.
www.cbc.ca 2021-03-20 17:28:14