Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the country may have to endure the COVID-19 pandemic for months to come, but his government has so far refused to release internal projections of just how deadly the virus could be and when the caseload might peak.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the country may have to endure the COVID-19 pandemic for months to come, but his government has so far refused to release internal projections of just how deadly the virus could be and when the caseload might peak.
Other countries, including the U.S., have offered models stating how many people they predict will be hospitalized and how many will die from a pandemic that has already claimed the lives of more than 130 Canadians while infecting thousands more.
Trudeau said Thursday the federal government isn’t ready to release that sort of data at this time.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised Thursday that his government will release modelling tomorrow of potential death rates. “It’s going to be stark,” he said, adding it will be a “sobering discussion.”
“It will be a real wake-up call. I don’t believe in holding back figures in this crisis. We have to be fully transparent with the people of Ontario, no matter how hard it is.”
He said he hopes the grim figures will convince people who have been defying stay-home requests — or flouting pleas to practice social distancing — to take pandemic planning more seriously.
‘Volume of deaths’
To date, most provincial governments have publicly released only daily, rolling updates on the number of cases and the current death toll, with little analysis of how COVID-19 might play out in the months ahead.
When pressed Thursday on why his government won’t release internal data on COVID-19’s potential spread, Trudeau said there is still more work to be done to provide Canadians with an accurate picture.
Watch: Trudeau says more pandemic data will be released soon:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government is working with provinces to gather the best possible data and that more analysis or modelling on how the pandemic might unfold in Canada will be coming soon. 1:46
“I’ll be speaking tonight with the premiers about this data, about the modelling and analysis that’s going on and we look forw