Montreal Public Health had indeed warned the Legault government of the “lack of robust data” on the effectiveness of the curfew against the transmission of COVID-19, confirms an ethical opinion which was made public Thursday evening.
Posted at 7:34 p.m.
Updated at 8:15 p.m.
At the head of Montreal Public Health, the DD Mylène Drouin had thus evoked “the collateral impacts, several tragic” of such a measure on vulnerable populations, such as the homeless or people at risk of suffering domestic violence.
It had been recommended to put in place “alternative measures to the imposition of the curfew”, can we read in the document available online. A few weeks ago, M.me Drouin had already expressed his reservations about the curfew, without however releasing all of his recommendations.
According to the opinion, the uncertainty surrounding the curfew guidelines and pandemic fatigue are all factors that should have slowed the government in its approach. It also reads that the curfew can promote “the adoption of behaviors that increase the risk of transmission, for example when people who would have met outside (low risk) choose to respect the curfew, but congregate indoors (high risk)”.
Instead of the curfew, Public Health had proposed to “communicate clear instructions to promote the isolation of cases and their contacts, maintain limited social bubbles, reduce the limits of indoor gatherings, use masks appropriately” and ensure adequate ventilation of enclosed spaces. Promoting the correct use of rapid tests and facilitating teleworking were also among the alternative measures suggested.
This government ethics advisory on the curfew was originally sent internally towards the end of December, according to information reported earlier by Radio-Canada, which revealed this week that the former national director of public health, the Dr Horacio Arruda, was looking for how to justify the curfew at the end of December, a few hours before the announcement of the measure.
A completely redacted document, from the first word to the last, was then sent to the public network, after having requested access under the Law on access to documents held by public bodies.
Boileau remains evasive
Hammered with questions on the subject Thursday morning at a press conference, before the publication of this ethical opinion, the acting national director of public health, Dr.r Luc Boileau, had prudently avoided the subject, refusing to say clearly whether or not he was comfortable with this redacting, or whether the document will be made public. “It’s a good question,” he simply replied to journalists, referring to official government authorities.
“I can assure you that in this documentation, there is no sign of things that are secret. It is certainly clear that there have been concerns expressed by several people around certain measures and that is correct, ”he however offered in response, shortly after.
“Me, I am comfortable being transparent in everything. And I think the actions that are taken so far […] are very transparent”, he also insisted, assuring that his teams and himself have “absolutely nothing to hide”.