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Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/auditor-general-pandemic-covid-phac-1.5963895
Public Health Agency was unprepared for the pandemic and 'underestimated' the danger, auditor general says
Early agency assessments of the pandemic were oblivious to the threat: AG report
Murray Brewster ? CBC News ? Posted: Mar 25, 2021 2:03 PM ET | Last Updated: March 25
Despite nearly two decades of warnings, planning and government spending, the Public Health Agency of Canada was not ready for the global pandemic and did not appreciate the threat it posed in its early stages, Canada's auditor general says.
In a hard-hitting review released today, Auditor General Karen Hogan took the country's primary pandemic response agency to task for failures in early warning, surveillance, risk assessments, data-sharing with the provinces and follow-up on Canadian travellers who were ordered into quarantine.
"The agency was not adequately prepared to respond to the pandemic, and it underestimated the potential impact of the virus at the onset of the pandemic," said the AG's review ? one of three that looked at the Liberal government's management of the COVID-19 crisis, which as of Thursday had killed 22,780 Canadians and brought the country's economy to its knees.
The auditor also reviewed federal COVID emergency benefit programs such as the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB) and the Canada emergency wage subsidy (CEWS) to determine whether the benefits reached people in need and whether the government imposed enough controls to limit abuse.
Her most critical comments, however, were reserved for the topic of pandemic preparedness. Hogan said PHAC, which was established to ensure the country was ready for a major outbreak, "was not as well prepared as it could have been" because major contingency plans and issues related to surveillance had not been resolved or dealt with ? even though some of them had been pointed out by previous auditors...
Public Health Agency was unprepared for the pandemic and 'underestimated' the danger, auditor general says
Early agency assessments of the pandemic were oblivious to the threat: AG report
Murray Brewster ? CBC News ? Posted: Mar 25, 2021 2:03 PM ET | Last Updated: March 25
Despite nearly two decades of warnings, planning and government spending, the Public Health Agency of Canada was not ready for the global pandemic and did not appreciate the threat it posed in its early stages, Canada's auditor general says.
In a hard-hitting review released today, Auditor General Karen Hogan took the country's primary pandemic response agency to task for failures in early warning, surveillance, risk assessments, data-sharing with the provinces and follow-up on Canadian travellers who were ordered into quarantine.
"The agency was not adequately prepared to respond to the pandemic, and it underestimated the potential impact of the virus at the onset of the pandemic," said the AG's review ? one of three that looked at the Liberal government's management of the COVID-19 crisis, which as of Thursday had killed 22,780 Canadians and brought the country's economy to its knees.
The auditor also reviewed federal COVID emergency benefit programs such as the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB) and the Canada emergency wage subsidy (CEWS) to determine whether the benefits reached people in need and whether the government imposed enough controls to limit abuse.
Her most critical comments, however, were reserved for the topic of pandemic preparedness. Hogan said PHAC, which was established to ensure the country was ready for a major outbreak, "was not as well prepared as it could have been" because major contingency plans and issues related to surveillance had not been resolved or dealt with ? even though some of them had been pointed out by previous auditors...