Newly released government documents paint a stark picture of how quickly Canada’s pandemic early warning system fell into decline before COVID-19 hit.
E-mails between staff at the Prime Minister’s Office show how alerts issued by the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, or GPHIN, dropped precipitously from 2009 to 2019, when key parts of the operation were curtailed.
The numbers confirm internal Public Health Agency data obtained by The Globe and Mail last summer, which showed how Canada’s internationally renowned pandemic early warning system was effectively shuttered less than a year before COVID-19 began spreading.