Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table: Who they are and what they do

Since the early days of the pandemic, the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table has been working tirelessly to keep the public informed and advise the government on all things COVID-19.

Despite hearing the table mentioned in the news in various capacities, they work in relative anonymity, but their research and findings have had an undeniable and indelible impact on how Ontario’s government and citizens have navigated the pandemic thus far.

Assembling the Science Table

The Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table is an initiative of The Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

It is an independent group and members are not paid to serve on the table, however the Scientific Director and the Secretariat are partially funded by the Dalla Lana School and Public Health Ontario.

Dr. Peter Juni, Scientific Director of the table, tells CityNews that he was approached by co-chair Adalsteinn Brown in June, 2020, to help assemble a panel of experts to make sense of and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“At the time, it was just really important to bring together the expertise related to all the different scientific aspects, but also an understanding of health systems, and really develop a common concept about where we actually stand, where we are going and what the science tells us,” said Juni.

The group officially came together as the science table in July 2020.

Who is on the Science Table?

“It was senior scientists and senior health systems leaders that would form this table, supported by a secretariat and myself,” said Juni.

The table is cochiared by Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Dr. Brian Schwartz, Vice-President, Public Health Ontario.

It consists of a core group of between 35 to 40 experts from diverse fields including science streams as well as public health.

In addition, the table has four main working groups focusing on the following:

• Behavioural science
• Congregate care settings
• Drugs and biologics clinical practice guidelines
• Mental Health

The working groups include existing science table members as well as experts in each subject.

Along with the secretariat that takes care of administration, the total number of contributors is about 120 people.

What does the Science Table do?

Making sense of data

The goal of the science table is twofold: keeping the public informed and advising the ministry of health and elected officials.

“We felt it would be important to have a role that would be independent of our government, but have still a mutually accountable relationship,” said Juni.

The table’s main task is to make sense of mass amounts of complex scientific data and put it into context for Ontario, reporting it in a way that is easily understood by the public.

“If you just have free-floating scientific data or papers that are all out of the Ontario context, it’s relatively unlikely that you will be able to use these papers or the associated data to move anything in a specific direction,” explained Juni. “What I see as our task, as the science table, is really to tackle very specific problems, very specific issues, look at the data and put this data into context.”

“If these data just stay in the academic ivory tower and we don’t put it into the context of Ontario, and sometimes in an international context, nothing will change whatsoever, especially not if the situation is as tense as during a global pandemic.”

Once the data is distilled into practical and useable information that can help inform both the public and public policy, the table shares the information publicly in their science briefs. Juni says the time and care taken with the briefs is as intensive as submitting a paper to a top medical journal.

He adds that it’s a balancing act between creating and communicating clear messages, without ignoring the complexities of the issues at hand, so that they can affect real change on the ground.

The table’s findings are also shared with the Ministry of Health’s health coordination table, various stakeholders in the government’s ministries and other relevant agencies.

Meeting and exchanging ideas

The table meets twice a week for about 90 minutes via Zoom to tackle various topics. They sometimes include external scientists from Canada as well as other countries like Israel, Australia, Germany and the U.K., to help them understand developments in a specific area of medicine or epidemiology or even in a specific country.

“It’s really then this ongoing, very uncomplicated and collegial way to exchange ideas and to start to develop this common notion about where this is all going and what does it all mean — that probably has helped to be a bit more consistent with the messaging that goes out that you hear from various senior scientists in the province. So just meeting for three hours a week is actually tremendously helpful to develop this common sense of a reality,” said Juni.

He adds that transparency is a key value for the table to ensure the public knows their motivation and where they are coming from.

“Only if we had this transparency and this ongoing communication of our thinking, would we keep people aboard,” he said. “This is basically, from my perspective, one of the aspects of public health in action. If people don’t understand what we’re thinking, why we are thinking it, what we’re advising — why would they want to follow?”

COVID modelling

The COVID-19 projections that are released periodically are the work of the Modeling Consensus Table which is a partner group to the science table. While some members of the science table are part of the Modeling Consensus Table and vice versa, it is independent from the science table.

Dr, Juni explains that the consensus table comprises of many different groups of scientific modelers in Ontario — many of them leaders on a global scale.

The consensus table takes into account various projection models that use different approaches and then works to create an “ensemble model” based on agreement between all the modelers and scientists “that enables us to come up with realistic projections for the future.”

“What you see is the end result of a longer and rather complex process,” said Juni.

Working with the government

Dr. Juni says the science table’s relationship with the government is “functional” and one of mutual respect.

“These relationships were extremely collegial all the time, despite the fact that many of us are just really at the brink of exhaustion,” he said. “It has been a long journey and we are still working together and we are still trying just to push the envelope in one direction.”

He admits that it has been strained at times, especially during the third wave of the pandemic, but they have continued to communicate and consult with each other throughout these tumultuous times.

“When the alpha variant kicked in and when we knew there was a challenge ahead and we warned early and still there was reopening happening in February and March — this was a challenging moment,” he said. “Eventually we made it, but it was a near hit, health system wise.”

“I think also that we all learned from this experience. And since we left the third wave, things really went tremendously well.”

Personal impact

“I found this an outstanding professional experience, but also an outstanding personal experience,” said Juni, whose first day off from the early days of the pandemic in March 2020, was Valentine’s Day 2021.

While he says most of the members of the table have slowed down a little in recent months — which means perhaps a Sunday off without looking at work — a day off is still an exception.

“The pandemic doesn’t care about weekends versus week days,” he said. “But I think a lot of us are also aware of the privilege we have to try to use our skill sets to actually help. This is extraordinary, but there’s also of course, so much pressure.”

Juni says the toll on their mental and physical health has been heavy and their personal lives have been turned upside down. He says his wife “deserves a gold medal” for taking over all family responsibilities entirely and “basically looking after everything else but the province.”

“Of course I’m tired sometimes, sometimes I was quite desperate to be frank with you,” he said. “But … there were moments, when colleagues of mine texted me talking about some community center somewhere in a small town in Ontario where people are queuing to get vaccinated, when I see on the long weekends how well people still are wearing their masks, then I just have to say— every single moment that I’ve worked my behind off here, it was worth it.”

And while the experience and continuing work has left him extremely exhausted, Juni says he is also extremely hopeful.

“Despite all the issues we’re having and everything that this pandemic unmasked globally … a lot of what I experienced during these last 20 months or so makes me tremendously optimistic about humanity,” he said. “Even though we all make mistakes, we all struggle — we can do it.”