Andy Lee - Why Did the Government of Canada Change its Position on Rapid Antigen Tests？
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about how the pandemic pandemic response to the Ebola outbreak in the late 2000s and early 2010s changed the way we think about pandemic prevention and response in Canada. We talk about the lack of rapid test kits, the government's decision to stockpile vaccines, and the efforts to reopen testing.
Transcript
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um so as of fall 2020 health canada still had not approved any covid19 rapid tests there was
00:00:10.380
no approved rapid tests as of fall 2020 so that's almost a year deep in the pandemic now right
00:00:16.840
and so what happened is you know we were told over and over again that these rapid tests were
00:00:23.320
useless uh we heard theresa tam saying that they weren't worth using you know they were flawed
00:00:28.400
and then all of a sudden uh in late 2021 early 2022 health canada all of a sudden pivoted right they
00:00:37.240
turned right about face and they said you know we're going to start acquiring these um so it was
00:00:43.460
a little bit of a bizarre and nobody really explained why all of a sudden they changed their
00:00:48.020
position because we were told that these you know these weren't up to snuff uh you know they weren't
00:00:53.120
specific they weren't sensitive uh you know they weren't a useful tool and you know we had a whole
00:00:59.300
bunch of these stockpiled and they weren't distributed right the provinces all had them
00:01:03.380
they weren't distributed out though because health canada was saying no and then all of a sudden
00:01:08.100
they did this crazy about face so i was like why um and i couldn't find any really good reason except
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for public pressure right and so uh provinces uh individuals you know action for canada places like
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that everybody wanted to reopen and pcr testing was you know also flawed and not sustainable and
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you know you know you know and skiaco yeah you know you know you know you know you you know you know
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you the it is so you know you it is very good to know for all kinds of people who got involved and
00:02:02.800
we also have heard about the surveys the surveys the thumbella masses that lead us at this point of aviation
00:02:08.360
and we're all about today's elections right now and tell us some time back from us and say