Looking into the past: a public health perspective on COVID-19

by Yuan Chao (Tim) Xue, Science & Policy Exchange (SPE)

A public health emergency is an “urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that seriously endangers the lives, health and/or safety of the population”.

As outlined by an advocacy statement by the Canadian Public Health Association, Canada’s COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery plans aim to minimize life-threatening illnesses and death while limiting potential societal disruptions to Canadians. The federal government’s responses to any public health emergencies include surveillance, guidance development, testing, provision of emergency supplies, and quarantine initiatives. While most of these responses were successful during the initial COVID-19 wave, the Canadian government lacked in areas such as data collection and testing capacity, resulting in approximately 4.2 million confirmed cases and over 44,000 deaths (as of September 2, 2022).

To read more, check out this article on Medium!