Evidence of meeting #21 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was research.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
Again, the evidence is evolving as well, as we know.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Yes.
Dr. Tam, according to an April 27 article in the Toronto Star, the “national modelling” that you presented on April 9 was not an actual mathematical model, but rather a synopsis of scenarios produced by internal and external experts. By my assessment, PHAC has never published a single epidemiological model complete with transparent data, methodology and assumptions to date. Norway, Germany and Switzerland publish these, often daily.
Does PHAC not have such a model, or is it withholding it?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
The approach we took was to have panels of experts. That leaves over 30 modelling experts from across the country to look at more than one methodology. It's not a single model, but they work pretty much constantly to update what the model's parameters would be, based on published information but also based on the Canadian models around the country. It is not a singular methodology, but one that takes into account many different ones.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I want to make sure I have your evidence clear, Dr. Tam. Are you saying that the Public Health Agency of Canada does not create or have its own model that it, itself, is assessing? Is it simply evaluating and gathering other models created by external sources?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
It would be both. For example, when I presented the short-term forecasting model, it was one of the methods that was presented. But that kind of model tells you what might happen in the very near future and depends on case input. There are other models, including disease transmission models and dynamic models, that we have in-house, but which also take into account many different inputs from scientists across Canada.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Will you deliver to the committee all models with data methodology and assumptions that are created by the Public Health Agency of Canada? Will you commit to doing that?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
Yes, absolutely.
Kim Elmslie, the VP in charge of the modelling team may want to supplement, but for sure, we can provide you with what we have. I know that our modellers were—
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
—wanting to provide their input as well into a peer-reviewed journal of what they're trying to do.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Okay.
Dr. Nemer, your website very recently indicated that it established eight COVID-19 expert panels and task forces, and you mentioned those in your testimony. When were those task forces established? How often have they met?
Chief Science Advisor, Office of the Chief Science Advisor
The first task force, the science expert task force, was established, I believe, towards the end of February and had its first meeting on March 6. That expert committee meets biweekly. It met today for the 16th time. After that we established two subgroups, one focused on modelling and one on health systems.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I know that there are eight task forces. When I go to the website, Dr. Nemer, there are no agendas, no minutes and no research studies published. Where can I find information about what these task forces are doing?
Chief Science Advisor, Office of the Chief Science Advisor
We've provided the title of the focus of the task forces; however, we're not publishing the agendas, but we certainly have summaries of the meetings and what was discussed.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Dr. Nemer, I can't find any summaries of any meetings on your website. The first thing said on your website is that your office “is committed to ensuring that government science is fully available to the public.” Will you reveal to the public and this committee for full disclosure all the minutes of meetings of all eight task forces in line with your mandate?
Chief Science Advisor, Office of the Chief Science Advisor
I don't think there is any problem in providing the committee with the minutes of our expert panels. I just want you to realize that—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Davies.
That brings round one to a close. We go now to the second round, starting with Dr. Kitchen.
Dr. Kitchen, please go ahead for five minutes.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you very much.
Thank you, everybody, for presenting today and for your great presentations. It's great for us to hear all of this information.
Dr. Tam, we last saw you in January. Thank you for coming back.
At that time in January, after a lot of prying and poking by me, I managed to get you to tell us that we could do 16,000 tests a day. Assuming that's roughly 108 days ago, that would amount to saying that we could have done 1,728,000 tests in that time frame. Since then, a lot of things have changed and a lot of testing has improved, yet today in your presentation, you talked about only 1,200,000 tests being done. Why is that? Why are we not getting all these tests done?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
What I said was that on average, provinces and territories are conducting about 26,000 to 28,000 tests per day. We do know that there's capacity now to do, just in the public health lab system, about 16,000 tests a day.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Yes, but Dr. Tam, you said 16,000 back in January, and we have come up with more tests, yet we do not seem to be able to equate it to significant tests, and I'm wanting to know why that is being done. Is that because of a breakdown between federal and provincial...?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
We've been working very closely with the provinces and territories and doing a huge amount of work, of course, in getting supplies, whether they're swabs or reagents, and getting domestic manufacturing in gear right now. I think the capacity will continue to increase.
As to the number of tests being done by each jurisdiction, part of this is related to where the epidemiology is at. British Columbia is doing a bit less now because its epidemic wave is coming more under control, but that needs to be—
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I apologize for interrupting, but I do have some more questions.
Dr. Tam, in 2016 the Government of Canada entered into a multilateral information-sharing agreement with the provinces and territories that outlined the public health information that must be shared with the federal government during a global health crisis. However, this agreement is not legally binding.
What steps is PHAC taking, in conjunction with Health Canada, to develop a mandatory information-sharing system for all jurisdictions in Canada?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
Right now all information sharing is collaborative with the provinces and territories. This is how the public health system is set up, so yes, we have to depend on the ability of the health system to provide that.
We are working right now with StatsCan to see what we can do to improve on that in order to get the data at the national level and fill in some of the blanks in the information we have.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you.
Other jurisdictions have done a much better job of reporting demographic details. For example, numbers out of New York City health show that of all the cases that have led to death, nearly 98% had an underlying health condition or underlying illness, including diabetes, lung disease, cancer, immunodeficiencies, heart disease, hypertension, asthma, kidney disease, GI disease and liver disease. In fact, as you're aware, China's tests only come out with positive numbers if a person tests positive and has pneumonia.
Why doesn't PHAC publish more detailed demographic data, as this is done in other jurisdictions?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
We do have a detailed epidemiologic report on our website. For example, in terms of hospitalization cases, close to 75% of them have underlying health conditions. Also on the website will be the analysis by age group and by sex, for example. That type of breakdown is available in the epidemiologic report, and it is posted.