Ontario's chief medical officer of health says the province can't let public health preparedness fall by the wayside again once COVID-19 fades from memory.
Dr. Kieran Moore says in his annual report out today that the arrival of the next pandemic is not a question of if, but when, and even though Ontario forgot the lessons of SARS, that can't happen again.
To prepare for the next pandemic or infectious disease outbreak Moore says Ontario needs to maintain its investment in public health preparedness, including in workforce, testing, surveillance and addressing socioeconomic inequities.
The report says that testing, surveillance and data systems should be strengthened because they are not integrated enough and too much had to be done manually during the pandemic.
Moore says the COVAX system for vaccines has worked well, but is only for COVID-19 and the government is working on expanding that to cover all vaccines.
Another priority in the report is ensuring health equity and Moore says Ontario should develop systems to support data collection and data usage to address that.