Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have no doubt that the Chief Public Health Officer has been making numerous decisions on data, and we've heard that today. We have heard numerous requests, from Members and the media and the public, to see some of that data. I recognize are is some issues with modelling, but firstly, I just want to get a sense of our capacity to really be making evidence-based decisions. I was hoping the Minister of Health could tell me how many people specializing in epidemiology we have on staff?
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have four full-time staff and four part-time staff.
The reason I ask this question is because I have no doubt that those eight people who are trained in epidemiology, this is the most important time in their career, and the most important time for the decisions they are making for all of our residents. A lot of that has been behind closed doors, and I haven't seen a lot of that data today. I think there is sometimes a hesitation on the part of scientists to give data to people like myself, who have no idea what to do with it. I was hoping the Minister could commit to bringing forward some sort of report of modelling, the data we have, an idea of the number of people with respiratory illness in the territory, what other jurisdictions have been doing. I would like to see some scientific evidence, and I was hoping the Minister of health could get that team to put something together for the public.
The epidemiology unit created what is called a public dashboard. The public dashboard is not quite live yet. It is something that demonstrates some of the Northwest Territories' case and test data in more detail. We are developing some important and transmission models so that we can better understand how this COVID might spread throughout the Northwest Territories with partners that are outside the Northwest Territories. We are working on the dashboard. It's not live yet. We are getting there, however; we do have information that is available.
I look forward to seeing that public dashboard and what kind of scientific evidence is put on there, as well as seeing the transition modelling. I hope to see that sooner rather than later. A request: often, when our government publishes data, they don't actually do it with a data set or give you access to the open data. Sometimes, it's just a PDF. Sometimes, it's a nice graph, but, obviously, there is always some underlying data there. My question for the Minister is: in that public dashboard, can we contain access to the actual underlying data in an open format?
The guidance documents are available on the GNWT website, and the public data dashboard will be available shortly, as I have just mentioned. The daily situational reports used identifiable data so these can be made public. Individual privacy can be assured. This only can be done with greater numbers. Right now, we don't have that.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
