New report gives BC's pandemic response good grade overall

A new report reviewing BC’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was released Friday. It gives the province fairly good marks for how it handled the virus and makes 26 recommendations for improvement.

The COVID-19 Lessons Learned Review, an independent review and consultation commissioned by the government earlier this year, praises BC for its balanced response, recognizing that public health restrictions also cause social and economic harm.

“The Government of British Columbia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was strong, showing resilience, balance, and nimbleness that should give British Columbians confidence in its ability to respond to future province-wide emergencies,” the report’s authors wrote.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth confirmed in a news conference that the government would look toward implementing notes for improvement from the report.

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“As you all know, the pandemic was an unprecedented situation, and we moved quickly to keep people safe and stop the spread of the virus,” he said.

The report analyzed more than 1,000 events in the COVID-19 timeline to develop a story of how the province tackled the threat.

The report found BC’s public health measures were somewhat less restrictive and more stable compared to other jurisdictions. In addition, BC had slightly lower disease and death rates, and employment in the province had recovered to pre-pandemic levels by July 2021.

However, the report acknowledged that public trust diminished over time as vaccine mandates stoked division.

The report also praised the government for communication, highlighting the popularity of the daily COVID-19 briefings. However, it noted members of the public viewed changes to guidance as evidence of earlier mistakes, which damaged trust. It said efforts should be made to build people’s “tolerance for uncertainty and ongoing change.”

People also expressed frustration at the lack of notice about announcements that affected them and the lack of written material that was available at the time of an announcement.

Once K-12 schools were shut down, that also eliminated a communications channel to families, and other gaps were pointed out in the report — from lack of government support funding for certain organizations and trouble with essential goods supply chains.

Overall, the report found the government needs to do the following:

Rebuild trust
Improve preparations
Improve planning
Enhance its ability to respond
Maintain relationships
Mitigate supply chain disruption
Recognize social supply chain importance
Improve decision-making
Respond with suitable approaches
Redefine Emergency Management BC’s role for province-wide emergencies
Learn from unintended consequences
Build public health knowledge
Improve health data collection
Improve communications
Build tolerance for uncertainty
Explain decisions
Explain the transparency/privacy tradeoff
Improve implementation
Improve public health order rollout
Refine use of public health tools
Be prepared to enforce
Share goals to collaborate on means
Leverage non-government resources
Co-develop Indigenous preparedness role
Respect Indigenous jurisdiction
Address pandemic overlaps and gaps

“In summary, the pandemic has provided some key lessons that can be applied to ensure that BC is better prepared for the next province-wide emergency,” the authors concluded.

The entire report is available online.