Project Tracking COVID-19 in Canadian Long-Term Care Paused Due to Lack of Data

A think tank that’s been compiling data on COVID-19 in Canadian long-term care homes says it has to stop its work because provinces are no longer making enough information public about the spread of the virus in the sector.

The project run by the National Institute on Ageing, based at Toronto Metropolitan University, launched in April 2020 and presents information about cases, outbreaks and deaths at long-term care homes in the form of a map, with a summary for each province and territory.

It has provided data to organizations including the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information and has contributed to national and international research on COVID-19 in a sector that’s seen a large portion of Canada’s deaths due to the virus.

But provinces have been sharing less data on outbreaks and cases since the start of this year and information is being made publicly available with far less frequency than in the past. The situation has reached a point where it’s now too difficult to keep the think tank’s project alive, said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the institute.

READ MORE HERE