Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Tam, last week WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the following at a press conference:
As many countries reduce testing, WHO is receiving less and less information about transmission and sequencing.
This makes us increasingly blind to patterns of transmission and evolution.
But this virus won’t go away just because countries stop looking for it.
It’s still spreading, it’s still changing, and it’s still killing....
When it comes to a deadly virus, ignorance is not bliss.
WHO continues to call on all countries to maintain surveillance.
Dr. Tam, given that many provinces and territories scaled back access to PCR testing after the emergence of omicron, do you believe that Canada currently has a sufficiently robust system in place to monitor COVID-19 activity and the emergence of new variants of concern?