Ontario’s outgoing chief medical officer says province ‘did a good job’ during rapidly evolving pandemic – CBC

Dr. David Williams says successor faces challenges because COVID-19 variants can arise at any time

Jun 24, 2021

Ontario’s retiring chief medical officer of health defended his tenure during the COVID-19 pandemic in a wide-ranging exit interview with CBC’s The National, saying that the complexity of tough issues the government faced were not always clear to detractors and that the province’s third wave might have been quashed if not for early hiccups in the world’s vaccine rollout.

Dr. David Williams, speaking with host Andrew Chang, discussed how he saw his job, the goals set at the start of the pandemic, tough decisions the province had to make and criticism of his performance, including from fellow doctors on Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory table.

“They’re free to say whatever they want and not all of them agreed with each other at the table,” he said. “That’s what a science table is. You get a bunch of doctors in the room. They hardly ever agree. That robust discussion is fair.”

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/dr-david-williams-retiring-chief-medical-officer-of-health-exit-interview-1.6078100