📣 Let Ottawa Public Health, Ottawa’s mayor, and city councillors know you want continued access to the city’s COVID-19 dashboard
✉️ Send letters to let them know you want continued access to updated data in the COVID-19 dashboard, and elsewhere on the City of Ottawa’s website. You can use your own email software to send the letters.
Why take action? The pandemic is not over, and levels of COVID-19 are extremely high.
Please take a moment to voice your support for continued public access to COVID-19 data in Ottawa. Keep the COVID-19 dashboard!
- Make sure your email application is active (e.g. Outlook).
- Click on one (or all) of the buttons below. It will create an email using the message template. Each message will be CC’d to Ottawa Public Health and Ottawa’s Board of Health.
- Customize your email. Don’t forget to add your name and email address, and modify the wording of the message if you like.
- Click send — and repeat! It won’t take long to go through the list.
To:
List of contacts
Cc:
- Vera Etches, Ottawa Public Health, Vera.Etches@ottawa.ca
- Councillor Catherine Kitts, Chair, Board of Health, Catherine.Kitts@ottawa.ca
Subject: Don’t trash the COVID-19 dashboard!
Message template:
I recently became aware that Ottawa Public Health (OPH) intends to drop regular updates of COVID-19 data in the city’s COVID-19 dashboard. On January 25th, the CBC reported that “After nearly four years, OPH said it is also ending its COVID-specific dashboard next month. Its respiratory updates will continue.”
OPH has assured Ottawa residents that it is “dedicated to ensuring that every resident has the information, resources, and services to navigate COVID-19.” Clearly this is not the case, if the dashboard is being discontinued. The web page for “respiratory viruses” also no longer links to the provincial screening tool, which advises people who are infected what actions they should take, including wearing a mask for 10 days from the start of symptoms.
We currently have extremely high levels of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in our community. People have not been informed about the systemic nature of this virus, which cannot be accurately described as “respiratory.” COVID-19 is a vascular disease that can damage the brain and the heart. Unlike influenza or the common cold, it may lead to long COVID, cognitive issues, cardiovascular diseases, extreme fatigue, diabetes, an impaired immune system, and many other health issues. The information provided by OPH blatantly omits any mention of long COVID, which impacts women significantly more than men.
To reduce our risks and stay safe, it is essential for us to have access to timely, evidence-based information. Suppressing data, or worse, not collecting data, on a virus that continues to flood hospitals and kill or permanently disable residents, is unconscionable.
Please reverse this decision.
Sincerely,
[Your name and email address]