Background
With Coronavirus spreading through countries far from its origin in China, it is considered by experts to be a pandemic; defined as “the worldwide spread of a new disease”.
In Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada ( PHAC ) leads the national response to a pandemic and has activated the Health Portfolio Operations Centre ( HPOC ), under the Federal / Provincial / Territorial Public Health Response Plan for Biological Events¹. The Plan details the coordinated response efforts to mitigate risk to individuals and health care providers and to mitigate the social impact in the event of an outbreak.
