Lifting lockdowns no sure road to recovery: officials

OTTAWA — Officials believed in late summer that an economic recovery would not magically happen if lockdowns and public health restrictions disappeared, a newly obtained federal document shows.

The internal briefing note says a key to recovery is the level of trust people have in their government’s ability to contain the spread of COVID-19.

The Canadian Press used the Access to Information Act to obtain the Finance Department briefing note, prepared in early September.

Although restrictions and lockdowns are common ways to reduce transmission of the virus, the note also lays out other options, including increased testing and contact-tracing.

It says countries that have managed to reduce transmission of the virus to very low levels have seen more people visit retailers, use transit and head to workplaces. Countries that haven’t kept COVID-19 under control, including where restrictions have been loose or non-existent, “have had a much more uneven recovery.”

“Lifting restrictions is not sufficient for a full economic recovery,” the briefing note reads, adding that “evidence has shown that to unleash demand, it is critical that individuals also feel safe and confident in the ability of their government to contain the virus.”

The words in the briefing document echo much of what the government heard over the fall.

“Restoring public confidence in the economy requires systematic, widespread and rapid testing and contact tracing — something we have been calling for since the spring,” said Robert Asselin, senior vice-president for policy at the Business Council of Canada.

“Nine months into this crisis, it is still not in place in most of the country. The patchwork approach to testing and tracing has been inefficient and very costly from both a health and economic standpoint.”

Nearing year end, Canada had recouped just over four-fifths of the three million jobs lost in the spring, and real gross domestic product was about four per cent below pre-pandemic levels after posting a historic decline in the second quarter.

Aiding in that rebound were low levels of COVID-19 transmission, which suggests “Canada has managed to balance both the health and economic risks related to the pandemic relatively well,” the briefing note says.