A Globe and Mail investigation last year found that GPHIN’s capabilities had been allowed to erode over the past decade as priorities within the government changed.A group of top scientists concerned about the decline of the federal pandemic early warning system in the years before COVID-19 emerged have proposed relocating the operation to a university where it can work independently of government.
“GPHIN must be guaranteed freedom from government influence or interference. To achieve independence of any future government influence, bias or interference, GPHIN must be situated outside of government.” The proposal to partner with the WHO is being led by Ron St. John, a former top federal epidemiologist who helped create GPHIN in the 1990s, and other current and former top federal scientists. If it succeeds, the operation would run as a non-profit, funded in part by the federal government, and also able to seek science and technology grants from other sources, which it currently cannot do.
WHO collaborating centres around the world are a way for member countries to contribute resources to the WHO by offering skills or technology they have. The Bruyère Research Institute is already home to one such collaborating centre, which focuses on technology used to track global health equity. A report by the Auditor-General of Canada issued two weeks ago also found that the federal government did not use the pandemic early warning system appropriately in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, and that GPHIN failed to issue alerts. This contributed a series of faulty risk assessments as the virus began to spread around the world.
The push to rebuild GPHIN comes at a time when other countries have identified the need to build their own early warning systems to help the international community detect major threats early and better contain outbreaks. The U.K. government and the Biden administration in the United States have signalled plans to bolster such capacities in recent months.
So: A convenient way to put predicting pandemics at arms-length from a federal Liberal government always anxious to avoid responsibility for disaster but ever ready to claim credit for success.
The technology already exists, and available from a Canadian company. Read about it:
This is a horrible idea