Drummond, Sinclair, Walker, Simpson – Public Health, From Last To First

National Process Needed to Hasten Vaccine Development: Crisis Working Group on Public Health and Emergency Measures

April 30, 2020 – A national decision-making process should be established as soon as possible to review ongoing research here and abroad and provide advice to Canadian governments, according to the C.D. Howe Institute’s Crisis Working Group on Public Health and Emergency Measures. Unprecedented collaboration will be required if a coronavirus vaccine is to be approved and available to the public within an 18-month timeframe.

Canada should leverage its existing advantage in vaccine manufacturing and begin expanding domestic capacity to ensure access for Canadians and the potential to contribute to the global supply through exports. Next steps include: 

Schwanen, Wyonch – Local Removal Of Restrictions Imposed To Fight The Spread Of Covid-19

Schwanen, Robson – Our Lessons In Loosening Lie In Europe

The best lessons from abroad about reopening our economies are in Europe – Globe and Mail Op-Ed

With encouraging signs on the COVID-19 health front, and mounting evidence of the costs of containing it, attention has shifted to the world’s economies. This is a global pandemic, and many countries have begun to reopen on their own terms. Here in Canada, governments in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick have announced plans for lifting some constraints.

What can we learn from progress elsewhere?

Many jurisdictions we would like to imitate – Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong – are in a class of their own. They imposed targeted travel checks and restrictions early, built capacity exceeding ours to test for exposure to the virus or produce protective equipment, and implemented electronic monitoring…

Change accelerator: COVID-19 – Hill Times Op-Ed

“Our business is at an inflection point. We can continue down the path we’ve been on … or we can make the significant and difficult changes necessary, ” said Gavin Hattersley, Molson Coors CEO to The Globe and Mail recently, and so it may be with health care after COVID-19. Many crises have been predicted to produce lasting changes to society’s status quo ante, changes subsequently proven minimal to ephemeral, as Andrew Coyne recently noted his column in The Globe. It is just possible, however, likely even, that some long-advocated changes to health care’s organizational structure and ways of working will have been shown to be so effective that they will remain imbedded in the “new normal” when…

What happens to the health system after COVID-19? – Toronto Star Op-Ed

The weekend brought good news and early signs the COVID-19 curve may be flattening. The number of new cases has slowed and the numbers of COVID-19 patients hospitalized and in the ICU have stabilized.

Current ICU utilization remains well under the best-case scenario projections, and while it’s still early, it appears likely that we will not have the same surge that overwhelmed New York and Italy.

Canada has avoided the fate of other jurisdictions through strong public health measures and physical distancing. Flattening the curve has involved shutting down or moving large portions of our society online: schools, universities, retail, and the justice system.

In the healthcare sector non-emergency ambulatory care was…

Blomqvist, Wyonch – Covid And Professional Scopes Of Practice

S2 E6 – Healthcare after COVID-19 with Janet Ecker

Janet Ecker – Some Questions About The Aftermath

COVID-19 Response Lacking Information and Supplies: Crisis Working Group on Public Health and Emergency Measures

April 8, 2020 – Addressing the poor coordination of laboratory infrastructure and shortages of personal protective equipment for frontline workers must be the top priority for health officials, according to the Institute’s Crisis Working Group on Public Health and Emergency Measures. In addition, proactive guidance for health care providers and institutions about appropriate practices for directing limited supplies and their reuse would reduce the negative effects of shortages in critical supplies where they arise. 

The group also noted there are still places and populations where rapid testing, widely deployed, with rigorous contact tracing and isolation could keep the virus at bay. 

Bhatia, Falk, Jamieson, Piovesan, Shaw – Virtual Healthcare Is Having Its Moment. Rules Will Be Needed