Well, it took six months

I am seeing rumblings about what the Trudeau government knew and when and whether they reacted quickly enough to the threat posed by the virus.

First let's remember that although the WHO knew about the virus in China and Asia as early as December 2019 they believed that it could be contained and were working with China to contain it in Wuhan province.  Looking at the WHO Pandemic Timeline demonstrates that.  Canadian authorities would have been monitoring the situation but there was not much they could have done at that point, except issue travel advisories and provide any assistance to China that they could.  

On January 30 the WHO declared the COVID virus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.  That is not the same as a pandemic.  That means that the global community should be concerned about this virus because it had potential to become a pandemic.

So I would imagine that the PM Trudeau and key advisors would have met on our about January 30 to discuss the issue.  The participants at the meeting would have been the:

• Health Minister
• Finance Minister
• Deputy PM
• Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Chief political advisor for the government

I imagine the conversation went something like this.

PM:  The WHO has declared this new virus a PHEIC.  I believe that means that this virus could spread to Canada.

Health Min:  Yes, that is what it means.

PM:  Well if that is the case I believe we should do everything in our power to prevent that.  What steps should be take to do so.

Health Min:  We should stop all travel to and from China and other countries that have cases.  We should also consider shutting down all international travel by Canadians because this virus is likely to spread beyond Asia.  We should apply restrictions to travel between the US and Canada.  We should begin preparing Canadians for the possible lock down of the economy.  Considering what we know, so far, about this virus, once it takes hold the only option will be to send everybody home to stay there until we can get it under control.

PM:  Really, we would have to take all of those actions to prevent the virus from coming here?  Is any of that even feasible?

Foreign Affairs:  Unilaterally shutting down all travel to and from China will not be taken very well in Beijing.  We could do it but it will hurt Canadian financial and commercial interests. 

Deputy PM:  Neither would unilaterally restricting travel over the Canada/US border.  Indeed, that would be impossible.  The Trump Administration will not accept any reduction in traffic across the border.

Finance Min:  The economic cost of these suggestions would be very high.  The airline industry would take a particularly big hit even if we just greatly restrict air travel.  If we take the suggestion of shutting down the economy the cost will be astronomical.  Millions of Canadians would be put out of work and our GDP would probably collapse.  

Political advisor:  Let's also remember that at this point none of what is being suggested will probably be effective.

PM:  Why is that?

Political Advisor:  Because it is basic human psychology.  Humans do not react to a threat until it is in their face.  This virus is still just a distant concern to Canadians, not a threat.  So any drastic actions proposed by the government will probably be ineffective.  If we tell Canadians to stay home to prevent the virus from coming to Canada they will ignore us.  The airlines and business will howl saying that we are overreacting.  The media and the opposition will say we are overreacting.  Most Canadians will say we are overreacting.  

Health Min:  If we want any chance of preventing the virus from coming to Canada we have to implement the measures I indicated.

PM:  Would that guarantee Canada would not be hit by this virus?

Health Minister:  No.  It will only increase the chances of it not hitting the country.

PM:  So we could essentially attempt to shut down the country and if we succeeded the virus could hit the country anyway?

Health Min:  Yes PM.

PM:  But in actuality, most of these measures are probably not feasible and the ones that might be would probably not be effective?

All other participants:  Yes PM.

Health Min:  But if we do not implement these measures it is only a matter of time before virus comes to Canada and we have no idea what it will do when it gets here.

PM:  So I guess what we need to do is prepare for its arrival.  What steps should be take now?

Health Min:  Continue to monitor the situation through the WHO and begin to take steps to detect the virus in Canada.

Foreign Affairs:  Issue travel advisories for countries that currently have COVID cases.  This has already been done.

Finance Min:  Begin to model the potential economic and fiscal impacts.

PM:  OK, I guess we are going to have to accept the fact that we cannot keep the virus out of Canada.  We can only mitigate its impacts both to public health and to the economy.  We are going to have to accept that Canadians are going to die because of this virus and that the economy could take a potentially big hit.  We will begin to implement the pandemic response plan to mitigate the public health impacts.  At some point this virus could become the threat that will galvanize Canadians and we may have to lock down the economy.  If so, I would like to encourage Canadians to do so by developing economic support programs.  We cannot develop them now but we can begin to do the groundwork.  If it becomes necessary we will have to deliver these programs in weeks not months so let's begin to work on them now.  We will consult with our allies and trading partners regarding collective actions to curtail the spread of the virus.  I will begin consulting with the Premiers.  They need to know what could be coming so that they can begin their own preparations.

PM:  Is there anything else we can do right now?

All other participants:  No that is a good start but this is only the beginning.  This has the potential to become much worse before it gets better.

PM:  OK, this will be a work in progress but we are agreed on what needs to be done right now.

All other participants:  Yes.

PM:  OK, thank you.

Of course, the actual conversation was very different but the above probably captures the gist.  The simple fact is all governments had a very stark choice at the end of January.  Implement very stringent measures to curtail the spread of the virus, with the commensurate impacts on their economies or protect their economies at the potential cost of many of their citizens.   

It should come as no surprise that most of the countries that took the stringent measures were countries close to the first epicentre of the virus.  It should also be unsurprising that countries that were really far away from that first epicentre took a more wait-and-see approach.  

Did the Canadian government take the best approach available to them?  That is debatable.  However, there were no perfect solutions to the problem in which they found themselves.  All they had were options and none of them would have prevented COVID from coming to Canada and none of them would have prevented the economic fallout we experienced. 

Personally, I believe they made the best of a bad situation.  They could have done somethings better but on the whole I believe they did what could be done.