Toronto Star - Project tracking COVID-19 in Canadian long-term care paused due to lack of data

The National Institute on Ageing has had to stop its work tracking COVID-19 in long-term care and retirement homes because provinces are no longer making enough information public about the spread of the virus in the sector, Holly McKenzie-Sutter writes for The Canadian Press.

Lack of access to public data on outbreaks, cases and deaths makes it harder to assess what’s happening in the sector and makes governments less accountable to pressure from the public, said Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research. “I think politically, it’s become more convenient to just not really report information, as opposed to continuing to remind people that we still have systemic and ongoing problems in protecting our long-term care spaces and their residents."