Front Burner - Documents: government played catchup as COVID-19 threat mounted

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

As Canada’s fight against COVID-19 continues, questions are being raised about whether the federal government acted fast enough to prevent the spread of the virus. Now, documents show Canada two steps behind as the pandemic spread across the country. JP Tasker, a senior writer for CBC’s parliamentary bureau, joins us to talk about what he found in those documents — and what they reveal about the situation Canada finds itself in now.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. As Canada continues to fight to flatten the coronavirus curve, more questions are being raised about how prepared the federal government was to deal with this pandemic. That's been further called into question by a series of government briefing notes which show that well into March, the government believed Canada was at low risk for a COVID-19 outbreak.

The documents also revealed by early February, health officials already knew the global market for masks was tightening fast. Canada was only able to scoop up a modest amount. JP Tasker is my colleague at the CBC's Parliamentary Bureau. He's been looking through these documents. So I wanted to speak to him about what he's learned and how those early government responses got us to where we are now. This is Frontburner. Hey, JP, great to have you back.

Hey, Jamie, thanks for having me back. So look, I know you've been digging through these documents. So let's start with what are they? What are these documents? Yeah, so a whole whack of documents were tabled with the House of Commons Health Committee last week. We are meeting today entirely virtually for the purpose of receiving evidence concerning matters related to the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The committee had ordered the production of these planning documents just before they rose earlier last month. They wanted to get a handle on what the government was actually doing in January and February to plan for this COVID-19 crisis.

So these are briefing notes prepared by bureaucrats across a number of departments in the federal government, you know, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada, Transport Canada, the National Defence Department. And really, they're documents that reveal a government that was slow to act, a government that was relying on federal public health officials that routinely downplayed the severity of the virus, who said up until March 10th that the risk of transmission in Canada was low. The risk is low because we don't have incredible community transmission. And, you know, Dr. Tam is very clear that when that begins to happen, we will know. Even when the caseload in China was exploding,

even while travel between our two countries was continuing, you know, unabated, really, for weeks and weeks and weeks. And they maintained all along that the risk of transmission here in Canada was low, even when there was, you know, this was starting to impact countries beyond China, you know, Iran and Italy and into the US. Right. And March 10, that was, you know, just over one month ago, just to put that in perspective. So okay, I want to do this chronologically with you. Let's start in January, right? So we're in mid January, what were bureaucrats telling Health Minister Patty Hajdu then about how this virus was spread, and how much of a risk it might pose to Canadians? They kept maintaining that the risk to Canadians was low. And they were downplaying

some media reports out of Wuhan in Hubei province in China, you know, the hotspot, you know, where we know this coronavirus, or at least we think we know where this coronavirus started. And they were downplaying reports that stated that, you know, this was likely being transmitted through human to human contact. This is being spread easily between people in Wuhan. Human-to-human transmission has not been ruled out. And that's a problem, because this week marks the official beginning of China's busiest travel season. Chinese health officials confirmed the virus could spread. So they were trying to warn ministers not to get caught up in some of the media reports that were

coming out of China that suggested this could be much more dangerous than we thought it to be. You know, they were saying that let's be careful, let's follow the World Health Organization's advice on all this. But the thing is, as early as January 28th, the World Health Organization was describing the risk to be high at the global level, very high in China, but also high for the rest of the globe. But the bureaucrats here in Canada maintain it was still low. I'm declaring a public health emergency of international concern.

Does that change at all? It does not change at all for Canadians, no. Obviously, it is low because partly travel to and from the affected region and from China is becoming more difficult. And of course, we have a very sophisticated system here in Canada, which has been noted, by the way, by the World Health Organization. They were reluctant to impose travel restrictions, reluctant to impose airport screening on inbound Chinese passengers,

reluctant to demand mandatory quarantine for passengers arriving from these global hotspots because they said that just wouldn't work. And really what they had to count on is limiting its impact once it got here. for passengers arriving from these global hotspots, because they said that that just wouldn't work. And really, what they had to count on is limiting its impact once it got here. Why did they say that they didn't think it would work? Screening at airports, targeting passengers coming from China? Was that ever explained in any of these documents? Well, they just didn't think it would be effective. And they didn't think that because global travel is so, you know, globalized, you know, it's, there are so many people arriving from around the globe every single day in this country, they didn't think it would be prudent

to have to put in some really stringent measures at the border. And they were also really worried that it would overwhelm public health officials here in this country. They thought if they had to quarantine people arriving from China, the public health officials just wouldn't have the capacity to monitor them. So they really were just relying on people being good citizens, you know, to avoid contact with other people, to follow up with their medical doctors or their health professionals if they had any of the symptoms of this disease. They were handing out some pamphlets starting in February, but they were reluctant to go that step further. You know, it's interesting that you talk about this around this time, you know, end of January.

I know we had like our first case here in Canada, January 25th. A man in his 50s had flown out of Wuhan on the 21st, arrived in Toronto on the 22nd, and was in Sunnybrook Hospital with symptoms on the 23rd. The patient was detected and immediately put in isolation. And I remember that the discourse around this was very much that Canada has this under control, that we could test for this virus because we had the sequence from China. 19 other patients are being tested for the new strain in

Ontario alone, but officials say the risk of an outbreak in Canada remains low. And I think there are risks of contracting other viruses that are here in Canada that we know a lot about that are much higher. I also remember around this time, January 22nd, Dr. Cameron Kahn, an infectious disease specialist here in Toronto, came on the show and he was actually really concerned about what he was seeing in China, including the fact that there was a proliferation of the virus two weeks after the

market closed. So to me, that basically said, OK, the outbreak has moved into a new phase. It's no longer animals to humans. It's now humans to humans. And so for me, that was the point of this is kind of the real deal here. And that there was a case popping up in the United States. And I distinctly remember him saying that there were a lot of parallels here to SARS and that he was already at this level where he was very concerned because it seemed like there was transmission between humans. And that transmission, well, we didn't totally know at that time how infectious it was.

It seemed like it was relatively infectious. You know, this is rapidly propagating person to person, the dispersion to other parts of mainland China. So there were people in this country sounding the alarm bell around this time, right? Do you see any of that in the documents? Well, yeah, just to that SARS point, we know that the death toll of COVID-19 surpassed SARS as early as February 9th. I mean, it came, I think there was about 773 people killed from SARS. By February 9th, there was over 800 for COVID-19.

So we knew that this was a deadly disease very early on. But no, in these documents, there are not many public health officials warning that it could get to that level. There is almost no instance of pandemic planning in these documents. It's mentioned once early in a call on February 10th between Patty Hajdu

and the provincial and territorial health ministers. She suggests that the Public Health Agency of Canada is working on some pandemic scenarios, or if this escalates, they're going to have some plans in place. But she doesn't actually mention those on the call. She doesn't actually brief the provincial and territorial ministers as to what the feds are working on at that point. And we know that that's one of the things we learned from SARS, that there was not good communication between the federal government and the provinces when this thing hit back in 2002 and 2003. There wasn't great communications between the various levels of government in this country. And it seems that that continued in this case as well, because the provinces are asking Minister Heidi,

OK, what are we going to do if this escalates? How are we going to plan for this? And there doesn't seem to be a lot of details other than to say, oh, we're working on it. There's something that might be coming if this does evolve. OK. other than to say, oh, we're working on it. There's something that might be coming if this does evolve. Okay. I just want to talk about a piece that came out recently from our colleague Murray Brewster, also talking about information that the Canadian government was getting from a unit within Canada's military intelligence agency around this time back in January. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Yeah, so there's a medical intelligence cell in the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command. The unit tracks pandemic and global health concerns, looking at them through the lens of how they affect military deployments. looking at them through the lens of how they affect military deployments. So this cell, you know, was monitoring the early progress of the outbreak in China, and they thought that it could be a lot worse than they were expecting at that time. And they had that intelligence ready for people in government. It's reasonably clear the Canadian warnings made it to the chief of the defense staff and the defense minister. And they had that intelligence ready for people in government, and it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference on how they were planning on responding to COVID-19 as it did become increasingly more concerning. Right. And of course, we know some reporting out of the United States,

like a similar unit in the US, as you mentioned, was talking about how China's leadership knew the outbreak was out of control, and that crucial information was being withheld from foreign governments and public health agencies. At this time. I know this, you know, according to reporting from ABC, apparently made its way into like Trump's intelligence briefings in January. And I guess the idea here is that these agencies normally do share information between each other. But it wasn't until late January that President Trump made his first public comments about this virus, saying that he wasn't at all worried about it, and that he had it totally under control. So there are questions around that as well,

obviously. I want to move into February, as reports continue to come in of more and more cases all over the world. How does the federal government respond? So really, the focus at this point is getting people out of Wuhan and out of China. So they start to send all these rescue planes, a couple of them to the region to repatriate them to bring them home to bring Canadians back from this hot spot. We're hoping to have these families back on on Friday, we understand for loved ones here in Canada, for the families over there, that it's extremely difficult. All of government approach at this time is really focused on them. It's also focused on getting Canadians who were stuck on board

the Diamond Princess cruise ship home, so they sent a chartered plane to pick those folks up and bring them home by mid-February. But they also started to turn their attention to, maybe we should do something about all these passengers coming from China who are arriving at Canadian airports. Maybe we should do something more than just have an information screen up in the arrivals hall of Toronto Pearson Airport. Maybe we should take this to the next level. And what they did is they started asking all of the inbound Ube travelers to provide some personal contact information. That started on February 19th.

But what's most troubling is that between January 22nd, so the end of January and February 18th, before this contact tracing was implemented at our airports, 58,000 travelers from China arrived here in Canada, and 2,000 of them were from Hubei province. But only 68 of the people who arrived in that time were pulled aside for a secondary screening with a quarantine officer. And only three, only three of 58,000 travelers were actually flagged for a medical exam. And now it's revealed in these documents that the secondary screening was essentially another question on those little kiosks when you come to the airport. You know, they were asking, did you arrive from Hubei province? Yes, no, you know, it does seem from what you're saying. And according to these documents that, you know,

at this point, they're just sort of talking about how to manage what they think is probably inevitable here, and still like a low risk. So are they talking about that in the documents? Are they talking about how to prepare for the cases? Are they talking about whether or not they have enough personal protective equipment for healthcare workers like masks? You know, what are they talking about about how prepared they are? Yeah, so Patty Hajdu jumps on a call with her provincial and territorial counterparts in that month. And the bureaucrats know ahead of this call that she's going to be pressed by the provinces on the personal protective equipment bit of all this, because the PPE is just so important to the frontline workers.

But the Public Health Agency of Canada had warned her at the time that they really didn't have a lot of success procuring any of this PPE. It was very difficult to get their hands on those N95 masks, to even get surgical masks to add to the national stockpile. They were saying that what the issue was is that industry at the time were staggering the deliveries of these masks because of the global demand. But it doesn't show that there was much of an effort made on the part of government to do what we know that we're doing now, starting up some domestic supply chains to produce some of these things. Ottawa also says Canadian companies are making PPE from locally sourced materials like construction industry house wrap and automobile airbags.

To keep our frontline workers safe and care for Canadians with COVID-19, we need a sustainable, stable supply of these products. And that means making them at home. There wasn't, there obviously, again, was not that sense of urgency to get those N95 and surgical mask stockpiles built up. So when she jumps on the call with the provinces, she mentions that there's been a modest amount of masks procured in the last number of weeks. And they keep maintaining up until February 26, that the risk is low. And at this point, we know there are 78,000 cases in mainland China.

But the issue too, is there was no testing or very little testing. They only had done 461 tests by February 17. We now know there's been 10s of 1000s of cases and all the science is pointing us to widespread testing is the best way to stop the spread of this disease where we can find people and isolate them. Right. But, you know, they did not ramp up those efforts. They were having trouble with the PPE procurement, and they just were not running enough tests. And of course, we know now, you know, efforts made to secure PPE, of course, like, you know,

Bauer is making face shields here in Canada, but also, our colleague David Cochran has a story about how we've essentially been able to create our own supply line in China. We just, you know, basically made this a priority and moved diplomats around China. And now we're starting to get those masks and, and the equipment that is needed. You know, you mentioned end of February and all of the cases in China at this time, but you know, Italy was also exploding around this time, 820 cases, 21 deaths. I hope next week they manage to solve the problem because the restaurants are empty, the cafes are empty, the trams and trains are empty. I don't know how long we can cope with this situation. Iran had 139 cases, end of February, 19 deaths.

The deputy health minister, he's got the virus, and he was involved in the most extraordinary press conference. Here he is, on the left, taking his glasses off, mopping his brow, looking decidedly unwell. He was telling those who had gathered that he doesn't believe in quarantine, that it's an old measure from World War One that doesn't work. The other man on the stage may have had a view on that. There was a lot of news at the time. I remember that, you know, the Iranian government was downplaying what was happening. The WHO upgraded the risk of the virus's global threat to very high. And I think this is a reality check for every government on the planet.

Wake up, get ready. This virus may be on its way and you need to be ready. So in these documents, are you seeing government officials talking about the situation outside of China, particularly in Italy and Iran. Yes, they document the number of people that had COVID-19 abroad. So they have those numbers available for the minister to review. But there isn't a lot of analysis and there isn't a lot of discussion as to what the other countries are doing in terms of preparedness and what lessons we could learn from them to apply here in Canada. Because we know by February 23rd, the South Korean president had put his country on the

highest alert. Taiwan. I mean, after all this is said and done, we're going to look to Taiwan as the country that did this best because they took such decisive action. They were ones that were really, you know, they started to screen arrivals coming from China, coming from Iran, coming from Italy, coming from other parts of Asia. You know, they had the comprehensive testing rolled out. They had detailed contact tracing.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. In these documents, late February, early March, is anybody talking about quarantines? They do. They mentioned it as a way to address passengers arriving from China, but they rule it out. They thought it would be best for people just to stay at home and do it without having to use the mechanisms of government. They didn't want to put that pressure on the public health resources in this country.

They just thought the best way to do it was hand out some of these pamphlets, tell them, you know, you should self isolate at home for 14 days. But there was nothing backing that up. They weren't enforcing it through law, they were enforcing it through regulation, they were just hoping that people would follow that guidance. So let's move then to what feels like a 180, right? Like here was a government that for many months was talking about, you know, no need for widespread quarantines, no need for closing of borders. And then all of a sudden, we start to see around middle of March, essentially like an

about phase, right? On March 16th, the federal government closes the border to all foreign nationals except Americans. We assured you that as the situation evolved, our response would evolve too. As the virus continues its spread, we've decided to take increasingly aggressive steps to keep you and your family safe. Canada and the U.S. also closed their borders.

Domestic flights are restricted. And what does that say to you? I mean, I want to take you back to March 13th when Dr. Theresa Tam recommends that Canadians not pursue non-essential travel outside of Canada. This means reconsidering your vacations, going to sporting and entertainment events, large international conferences.

On that very day, the Prime Minister is asked about closing the border with China, and he says that we didn't go that route. We were able to manage it in a way that allowed for control and a non-spread of the virus that gives us confidence. And then March 16th, everything changes. So you get whiplash when you think about all this, because the advice changes so dramatically in such a short timeframe, it really is cause for concern. Why did the Public Health Agency of Canada not feel the need to warn

the government and the ministers that are responsible for implementing policy earlier than this? JP, how have public health experts, you know, maybe those that aren't sort of in the center of the decision making nexus, how have they responded to these documents and to Canada's preparedness for this crisis in recent days? Yeah, so we've heard people come out who said we were just not prepared. We were caught flat footed. Sandy Buckman, who's the president of the Canadian Medical Association, came out last week and said, you know, we were just not ready for a pandemic. The federal government did not prepare this country to deal with this sort of thing. I see how prepared we are militarily. You know, our army is ready to go at any time. We have adequate

equipment. The same should be true for dealing with the pandemic. We didn't stockpile sufficient equipment. We weren't ready. And hence the incredible effort that's being made right now. The front line, the people who are working on the front lines, the doctors and nurses and the people that were dealing with some of these early COVID-19 cases were telling provincial health officials, we're just not prepared, we're scared. So they are definitely making it known that they all along had concerns about the whole planning process and the federal government, the federal public health officials were kind of turning a blind eye to all that maintaining this fiction, which we know is a fiction now, that the risk to Canadians was low. Although, you know, I think it is probably fair

to mention here that, like, we took some very aggressive measures in mid-March, but we haven't seen our hospitals overrun like other countries at this point. And I think we just, we don't know yet. But it does seem like we have had some success, at least with these social distancing measures, particularly in provinces like BC. I'm starting to see some glimmers of hope, if we will, that we've flattened out our increase, our trajectory has leveled off a bit.

Although I think what is emerging in Canada right now, which is very clear, is the tragedy that's happening in long-term care homes. Now 50% of the deaths that we're seeing in this country are from long-term care homes. It feels like that issue in and of itself, there's so much to examine and so many questions to ask there. You know, as citizens, what kind of accountability do you think we need to be asking for from the federal government, even in the midst of this ongoing crisis? You know, some people might say, look, like, this is a government trying to make decisions in real time. This is sort of like the fog of war, right? It's easy to kind of sit here in hindsight.

At those days, the numbers of Canadians infected were still low, but we saw the potential that we are in right now and we started to act early. What we can say safely is that in January, if we had told everybody to stay at home and not go to work, that there would have been quite a lot of disbelief by Canadians that this would be an appropriate measure. Yeah, absolutely. Our hospitals haven't been overrun and things aren't looking as grim as they might be in some other jurisdictions. But I go back to Taiwan. They have about 376 cases because they took aggressive action.

We're what, well over 20,000 cases. I think it's important, you know, when I wrote this story last week, there were a number of people inside and outside of government who were critical. You know, they say this undermines the public health response, you know, somehow suggesting this sort of reporting is, you know, unpatriotic, or just not being very helpful. I say it's the opposite. I think stories like these, they should encourage our officials to change course, if necessary, to be more dynamic in their response to this global pandemic. The people who led us into all this are the ones that we're trusting to lead us out. And I think that they have to

change course if changing course is necessary. And stories like this illuminate what happens when you don't take early action, when you don't take action when it might be necessary to do so. You can have deadly consequences. You know, we can lose so many of those folks you were talking about in long-term care homes because we didn't adequately prepare for those scenarios, because they didn't get that PPE in mid-February, because they didn't have masks and gloves on hand for the workers in those long-term care homes. We're seeing what happens when they don't. And so I think it's only necessary that we shed light on this sort of thing.

All right. JP Tasker, thank you so much, as always. Thanks, Jamie. All right, so before we go today, JP and I spoke about issues here in Canada with testing. Some news on that front on Monday. Health Canada has now approved a new rapid test for the coronavirus, and it can produce results in under an hour. The test is made by an Ottawa-based company, and it's expected to alleviate pressure on labs because it uses this handheld device. It's also expected to be one of the solutions for testing kit shortages. The head of the company that produces these tests says they'll be able to ship 10,000 a week now,

and in three to four months, 100,000 to 200,000. He says the company is being inundated with requests, including from private companies who want to test employees as they facilitate back-to-work plans. We'll keep you posted on this front. That's all for today, though. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you soon. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.