TORONTO (LifeSiteNews) – The Ontario Science Table, an independent group of public health advisers to the Ontario government, announced it will fold in September, more than two years after it was created.
Dissolution of the Ontario Science Table. Please see our members’ statement. https://t.co/Nd7DqchW4j pic.twitter.com/5qfb0A7OIc
— COVIDScienceOntario (@COVIDSciOntario) August 26, 2022
The table had a modeling group that was responsible for frequent COVID-19 projections that were frequently incorrect, grossly overestimating the effect of COVID in Ontario on multiple occasions.
In April, Dr. Peter Juni, the head of the group of scientists, told reporters that Ontario was in the midst of a COVID spike as large or larger than anything the province had seen, even as hospitalizations were at all-time lows and the province was beginning to open up fully.
He told the CBC that he estimated 100,000 to 120,000 new cases of COVID daily were going unreported, which was exponentially higher than the numbers reported and which would have lowered the risk of COVID, as deaths did not rise with the supposed rise in cases.
Juni estimated at the time that almost five million Ontarians had been infected with COVID between December 2021 and April 2022.
Another member of the group — David Fisman, an epidemiologist and professor at University of Toronto – was accused by the Toronto Sun of operating under a conflict of interest in his capacity as an adviser to both the government and a major teacher association.
Fisman was retained by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario to argue against opening schools. This work was taken on at the same time Fisman was serving on the science table, which advised the government on matters including school reopenings.
Fisman did end up updating is declaration of interests, but only after the Sun had exposed the potential conflict.
As Canada remains one of the last jurisdictions in the developed world with strict COVID measures – such as the highly controversial entrance restrictions for Canadian citizens – a spokesman for the table said that the “pandemic” remains a “daunting challenge.”
This comment comes as a public health adviser, speaking for the government of the province of Quebec, said that for some age groups COVID has proved to be less dangerous than the flu.
That feeling when what you have said for 2.5 years is vindicated… again https://t.co/ZMVk7AVEIM
— Kennedy Rosary Extremist respecter (@kennedyhall) August 26, 2022