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disease. The 2006 and subsequent minor amendments also facilitated
coordination with international actors by bringing the Quarantine Act
into line with the International
Health Regulations.
The provincial response to SARS has been variable, with vari-
ous amendments to provincial public health laws coming into force in
the years following the SARS outbreak. When the disease hit Ontario,
the government amended its Health Protection and Promotion Act to
include SARS as a disease to which the legislation applied,25 which
meant that individuals such as health professionals had to report
cases of the disease to public health officials and public health offi-
cials were empowered to require infected individuals to submit to
examinations or isolate. The most significant amendment to provin-
cial public health laws has been to clarify that public health orders,
such as those compelling isolation, could be directed not only toward
individuals, but to groups of persons.26 These powers have been used
extensively during COVID-19, for example, with respect to returning
travellers and symptomatic individuals. Some provinces also made
post-SARS changes to their emergencies laws to make them more
responsive to disease outbreaks. For example, Ontario amended its
Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act (as it is now called) to
define “emergency” as including a situation caused by “a disease or
other health risk.”27
H1N1
H1N1 was the first real test of post-SARS public health reforms. The
pandemic manifested itself in two waves in Canada, with the first
peaking in May 2009, and the second, more severe wave, cresting in
November 2009. Unlike SARS, the victims tended to be younger, with
25. Health Protection and Promotion Act, RSO 1990, c H 7.
26. Ibid, s 22(5.0.1). Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health at the time of SARS explained
the rationale for this amendment: “There was an instance wherein we had an
entire group of people who needed to be put into quarantine on a weekend.
It was physically and logistically impossible to issue orders person to person
on a Saturday afternoon for 350 people who happened to live in three or four
different health units all at once…” (The SARS Commission, SARS and Public
Health Legislation: Second Interim Report, vol 5 [Toronto: The SARS Commission,
2006] at 320, online [pdf]: Archives of Ontario <http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/
en/e_records/sars/report/v5.html>). See also Public Health Act, SBC 2008, c 28,
s 39(3).
27. Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, RSO 1990, c E 9, s 1.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Titel
- VULNERABLE
- Untertitel
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Autoren
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Verlag
- Ottawa Press
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Seiten
- 648
- Kategorien
- Coronavirus
- International