On May 20, GSL Director Steven Hoffman was interviewed by Radio-Canada to discuss if 19 years after the province faced SARS, they were better prepared for COVID-19.
In the interview, Hoffman argued that in the first few weeks of the outbreak, Ontario’s ability for testing was slowed down by a lack of planning caused by chronic underfunding of Public Health Ontario laboratories. According to Hoffman, One of the lessons we would take from this pandemic is how to analyze a large number of tests in a quick fashion, adding that funding of the public health sector will have to increase even more.
Answering the question of preparedness, Hoffman summarized that the province in 2020 was less prepared then only a few years ago. This is according to him a worrying trend since COVID-19 is not the worst-case scenario of a pandemic taking hold in Canada.
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