Independent review of B.C. COVID response calls for better communication, transparency
A review of British Columbia's COVID-19 response released Friday says despite being unprepared for the pandemic, the province showed “resilience, balance and nimbleness” during the emergency.
That's despite nearly 75 per cent of the people surveyed as part of the independent review reporting they didn't trust information coming from the government.
However, both the report's authors and Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth say the online survey was not representative of the population as a whole and the results showed significantly more dissatisfaction than other public opinion research.
The review, which included meetings with 145 organizations and the survey with 15,000 respondents, made 26 findings including recommendations around better communication, transparency, data collection and improved public trust.
At a news conference, Farnworth said the government tried to be as open as possible during the pandemic and based its decisions on the best public health advice available.
“I think the approach that we took was the right one, but obviously we learned lessons from that and we welcome the feedback and report,” he said.
“What that will allow us to do is to be better prepared in the future. And we will always be looking at ways in which we can make improvements when it comes to maintaining the public's trust.”
The report says the level of trust in the government's response was very high in the initial stages of the pandemic, thanks in part to the daily media briefing lead by provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.
But, like in other provinces, that eroded, leaving the province in need of ways to rebuild.
Division stoked by vaccine mandates demonstrated that “a significant minority” resist public health measures, it says.
The report says there is concern “that eroding trust may translate into more resistance to restrictions necessitated by the next provincewide emergency.”
Among steps that could help with public trust, the report suggests the government find better ways to explain why decisions are made and condition the public to expect change during emergencies.
They say establishing expert advisory panels would contribute to better explanations and suggest the amount of data released by the government did not adjust as quickly as it could have when growing case numbers meant less individual privacy concerns.
“The balance between privacy and transparency could be more regularly examined and clearly communicated, as necessary to maintain public trust,” the report says.
The review highlights a lack of provincewide health-care data collection infrastructure, which it calls “a long-standing issue for health-care system management and public health.”
In B.C., there are 37 different administrative IT systems in hospitals and health authorities, many of which are not able to exchange information with each other or with central systems.
When it came to personal protective equipment for hospital staff, the province was forced to create a new system to manage provincewide inventory, the report says.
Collecting hospitalization data was a “laborious daily manual exercise, affecting timeliness and accuracy” because of the system incompatibility.
There was also no ability to automatically track vaccinations on a provincewide basis, meaning a new system had to be created “in record time,” the report says.
“Government should consider how best to deal with the disparate set of IT systems, data definitions and data collection practices to ensure that the health-care system is able to assemble needed data that is timely and accurate,” it says.
Farnworth said many of the findings in the review are part of work already underway to prepare B.C. for future provincewide emergencies.
He said the province is now more co-ordinated, has a better understanding of supply chain concerns and is updating its pandemic provincial co-ordination plan.
“I think everything that we went through, both what worked and the challenges, are going to allow us next time to be better prepared,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2022.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
Majority of Canadians believe in life after death: Angus Reid survey
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.
MyPillow, owned by U.S. election denier Mike Lindell, formally evicted from Minnesota warehouse
A court ordered the eviction Wednesday of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used.