An independent panel of volunteer scientists and public health experts, which has been advising the Ford government on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic since July 2020, has been told it will be disbanded from next month.
Ontario’s Scientific Advisory Panel released a statement confirming that it was told by Public Health Ontario last week that its work would be terminated as of September 6.
The move comes less than five months after the provincial agency announced it was taking over the “operation and oversight” of the independent table, which was previously hosted by the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
It also comes on the heels of the resignation of long-time table co-chair Dr. Adalstein Brown earlier this month.
In a memo sent to Public Health Ontario president and CEO Michael Sherrard and made public Friday, the other panel members cited several “key principles” of their “original mandate,” including the ability to “identify and study any scientific question, that our members felt would help Ontario fight COVID-19” and to “communicate publicly and openly about the results of our investigations”.
The table also shared several lessons they said they learned during the pandemic.
These lessons were: science matters, fairness matters, transparency is critical, independence must be both perceived and provided, and timeliness and relevance are essential.
“The COVID-19 pandemic continues and is contributing to the growing number of crises in Ontario’s health care system,” the memo said. “Every one of us at the science table has a part to play in the effort to keep Ontario healthy, and now we’re going to get right back to that work.”
The Ontario Science Advisory Panel consists of dozens of scientists and other experts who have volunteered their time to study multiple aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, often providing direct advice to the government on the need for public health measures to contain distribution.
The table also had a separate modeling group responsible for frequent COVID-19 forecasts, which often provided early warning of upcoming waves of the pandemic.
In a statement released on Friday, the table’s scientific director, Dr Farhad Razak, said it had been a “great privilege” to serve on the table since its inception and said he hoped some of the “hard” advice it provided in ultimately “to help reduce suffering” during “the worst public health crisis in a century.”
However, Razak warned that “the pandemic will remain a daunting challenge for the foreseeable future” and expressed hope that “the principles on which the table was based” will continue to exist in some form.
“I hope we can all take the necessary steps to reduce the burden of the pandemic to keep our system functioning in the difficult months ahead,” he said.
The government often ignored the advice
The science board’s advice often differed from the actions taken by the Ford government during the pandemic, with its former science director Dr Peter Juni often appearing on air to urge Queens Park to act more aggressively.
It has also at times found itself at odds with some of the decisions made by the Ford government, particularly its decision to close playgrounds and other recreational facilities during the devastating wave of the pandemic in the spring of 2021.
The chart collapse comes as caseloads trend downward in more than half of Ontario’s public health units, even as experts warn of a fall wave of the pandemic that could further strain Ontario’s already overburdened health care system.
Students were also due to return to classrooms last week, with mask-wearing mandates no longer in place and many other temporary public health measures, such as cohorting and mandatory physical distancing, no longer in effect.
It is unclear at this stage why Public Health Ontario decided to disband the table.
CP24 has reached out for comment but has yet to hear back.
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