Thank you for the question.
Even at the present time, pre-COVID and pre-pandemic, our system does not have the appropriate capacity to serve our remote and rural communities. This is a huge problem. This would be part of the health human resources planning picture.
Specifically with regard to COVID-19, just as we are testing the more urban population or the part of the population that is better served, we need to get testing out for rural and remote communities. It is possible to provide virtual care for the mild illnesses, the 80% or so of people who will only have mild illness, but we have to be prepared, as we are, to evacuate those with more serious illness to centres that would be able to handle them.
Again, a lesson that needs to be learned is that we don't have the full capacity yet to serve our remote and rural populations. The pandemic should be a wake-up call. We are gravely concerned that people will get sick in our remote communities, particularly in our first nations communities, where the social circumstances would predispose first nations communities to the development of significant illness, given, say, the number of people who live in a particular dwelling.
To your point, I think it's very important to look at that issue critically. We'll take lessons from this to ramp up resources for remote and rural communities as much as possible, including the increased use of virtual care.