Early on in 2020, the message from the federal government was that the coronavirus risk here was low, but the rapidly-spreading disease eventually reached Canadian soil, setting off a cascade of ever-evolving policies, from the advice given based on the virus’ ability to spread, to measures needed at the border and the need to inventory medical supplies, internal documents show.
In early January, the government went from saying the novel virus was being “actively monitored” with no confirmed cases in Canada. By mid-March, the government had repatriated citizens, assessed the national stockpile of supplies, and was having to update public health advice with the suggestion that up to 70 per cent of the country could contract the disease.
These evolutions in policy, reacting to the evolving understanding of the never-before-documented virus are documented in part, through hundreds of pages of departmentally-redacted documents obtained by CTVNews.ca. The documents offer a glimpse into some of the early-stage federal conversations and policy decisions made in the months after the novel coronavirus was identified and labelled COVID-19.
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