Committee formed to respond to coronavirus
Experience with SARS helpful, Freeland says
OTTAWA • The government set up a new cabinet committee Wednesday to address the COVID-19 crisis as fears of the spread of the virus grow.
The new committee includes Health Minister Patty Hajdu, and the ministers of industry, public safety, economic development, finance and employment, and the president of the Treasury Board. It also has Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland as chair.
Canada has 33 cases of the virus so far mostly in Ontario and British Columbia, but the virus has been spreading globally with new outbreaks in Italy, South Korea and Iran added to the epicentre of the disease in China. So far all of the patients in Canada have recently travelled to one of the impacted countries.
Hajdu said how Canada would respond to a community outbreak would depend on the scale and circumstances of the outbreak, but it would include support from the federal government.
She said the work public health officials have done so far and continue to do could prevent an outbreak from taking place during flu season, when hospitals are already full.
“If we can delay community transmission beyond the typical flu season, we can provide some slack in the health care system.”
Global supply chains have been hit by the outbreak and there is concern it could lead to a recession. The U.S. central bank cut interest rates on Tuesday afternoon and the Bank of Canada followed suit on Wednesday morning.
Freeland said the economic impacts were definitely part of the discussion the new cabinet committee had on Wednesday.
“We are here today to assure Canadians that the government is very aware of the broad economic and potentially social impacts of coronavirus,” she said. “We are monitoring the outbreak and we remain ready to deploy fiscal measures as appropriate.”
Freeland added that Canada is well positioned to handle a crisis like this in part because of the lessons of the SARS crisis.
Hajdu said the government has contingency plans in place to ramp up the response if the disease spreads, and is ready to take the next steps if the problem escalates. “We have been doing scenario planning for a couple of months.”
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said the government is using plans created for a pandemic flu as a guideline for this response.
She encouraged people to wash their hands frequently, cough or sneeze into their elbows and to stay home from work if they’re sick.