Information leak, puts Public Health Officials on defensive over past data reporting on COVID

How the Province of British Columbia reports its data
has made for some controversy this week after two reports
form the BC CDC were leaked to the media

A leak out of the BC CDC earlier this week that indicated that Public Health Officials have not been sharing as much information as they could on COVID-19 led to a Friday afternoon press conference, with Doctor Bonnie Henry and Doctor Reka Gustafson trying to regain the narrative over the province's handling of the coronavirus.

Unlike the COVID-19 information sessions hosted by Doctor Henry and Minister Dix through much of the last year and half, today's media call was not streamcast live through the usual provincial portals.

Something which left British Columbians to monitor twitter mostly, for updates along the way from some of the province's correspondents on health care and politics.

The accounts of the media call from Friday suggest that while committing to releasing more specific information  that is neighbourhood specific, the health officials did not accept charges of being less transparent than other provinces in how they release information. 

The theme provided by the officials one that they release as much information as they can.

The Friday afternoon presser came after two internal reports from the BC Centre for Disease Control were leaked to the Vancouver Sun, among the areas they addressed:

Details of COVID-19 case counts
Vaccinations at the Neighbourhood level
Information related to variants of concern and more 

Dr. Gustafson the deputy provincial health officer noted that it's expected that the expanded information will be released regularly in the coming weeks.

Critics of the way that both Public Health and the British Columbia government have released data on COVID have stated in the past that such information would have been useful to help inform the public as to how the coronavirus had spread, something they believe would have been useful for communities towards addressing specific need in those areas.

The BC Liberals were quick to respond to the current controversy that the NDP government finds itself immersed in, with MLA Renee Merrifield the Liberals health critic leading the party's response.

“We have been calling for better COVID-19 data transparency for months, but the NDP largely ignored our requests — now we know that they have had this data all along. To knowingly hold back this critical information from British Columbians — especially after so many have been asking for it to be released — is a failure of government. This data shines a light on the B.C. communities that have been hardest hit by the pandemic and it could have been used to educate the public — even though it was readily available, the NDP government kept it hidden from people and refused to share it.”

MLA's from the Surrey region also spoke to the lack of data information which they suggest would have been helpful in how communities in Fraser Health could have addressed the long running outbreak of COVID, for much of the year, the Fraser Health region has been host to the largest amount of COVID cases relayed on a daily basis.

“The Premier insisted B.C. was the most transparent jurisdiction in Canada but that’s clearly not true. If it was, government would have been making this data available from the very beginning. John Horgan and the NDP have actively withheld valuable information from British Columbians day after day for over a year now. We’re calling on the government to retroactively release the complete versions of these reports from the third wave, and continue to provide the whole story going forward. British Columbians deserve transparency from their government." -- Renee Merrifield, BC Liberal Health Critic.

Some of the media observations from the conference call and how it may impact on the NDP government can be reviewed below:

BC government's pandemic data leak confirms lack of transparency relative to other provinces
Critics demand more transparency on BCCDC data
BC Health officials defend COVID-19 transparency, pledge to release more data
BC Health officials defend COVID-19 data practices, promise more information after document leak
Leaked BC CDC documents shed light on how COVID-19 affecting South Island
Leaked reports show BC health authorities withholding data from the public
BC promises more access to pandemic information
NDP fails three tests in a week of its promise of openness
COVID data leak highlights BC public's right to 'no'
Health authorities in BC have been withholding detailed COVID-19 data from public, leaked reports show

More on the controversy can be reviewed through our Victoria Viewpoints Archive

For more notes out of the Legislature see our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.