Health Policy - Council Reports

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: 

Establishing the process for evaluating successful trials.…

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. 

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April 1, 2020 - The Public Health and Emergency Measures crisis working group is supported by a group of health academics, professionals and business leaders and chaired by Janet Davidson, Chair of the Canadian Institute for Health Information's Board of Directors, former Alberta Deputy Minister of Health, and C.D. Howe Institute Senior Fellow. The working group’s first meeting was held March 27, 2020. 

The presence of COVID-19 in communities, unlike SARS where cases were primarily concentrated in a hospital setting, broadens the scope of treatment and adds complexity to managing the spread of disease. The challenge of ensuring adequate quantities of medicines and testing reagents, for instance, has been compounded by border…