Hamilton never trained for a pandemic that would last years and affect ‘absolutely everything and everyone’

The city was not prepared for COVID.

Hamilton's Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) had trained for ice storms, tornadoes, a fire at an industrial facility and other similar disasters.

These kinds of emergencies take a day or two, maybe a week, whose impact is generally a little more contained," EOC director Jason Thorne told The Spectator. This one was obviously very different in that it's two and a half years and still going and it affected absolutely everything and everyone."

Being ready for such an all-encompassing and long-lasting crisis is the focus of the seven recommendations put out by the EOC as it evaluates what went well and what didn't during its COVID response. Over the pandemic, the EOC was in full operation from March 12, 2020, to May 10, 2022. The 16-member team remains mobilized today, monitoring the COVID situation and ready to ramp up again if needed.

We didn't create, for the most part, dedicated staff," said Thorne. Everybody kind of kept doing their day job and took on the EOC responsibility in addition to it, which is fine for a three-, four-, five- or six-day response. For a two-and-a-half-year response, that becomes a challenge."

There was also no road map for how the EOC should deal with staff departures, such as its director Paul Johnson leaving Hamilton to work for the City of Toronto about 18 months into the pandemic.

In a two-and-a-half-year period, you deal with staff turnover, you deal with retirements and changes of leadership, and yet the emergency is still proceeding," said Thorne. So how do you deal with succession planning ... on such a long-term emergency response."

The recommendations after two and a half years of pandemic include:

• Dedicate specific resources to respond and make them separate from the continuation of essential services;

• Activate temporary succession plans for key leadership roles;

• Develop continuity plans that are updated annually so staff know what services will continue and which ones will be altered or shut down;

• Anticipate future waves and how they may affect critical events, such as large-scale gatherings and elections;

• Provide ongoing orientation and training for city council and staff so that they understand roles and responsibilities during an emergency response.

The report to the general issues committee (GIC) on Sept. 21 also identified that the EOC was unprepared for the overwhelming amount of communications required during a pandemic. The demand was described as never-ending."

Workload demands of the pandemic often outstripped available resources to do the work," stated the report. This ... had considerable impacts on staff well-being and regular work."

City councillors were getting inundated with questions from constituents, journalists made multiple daily inquiries, local businesses needed answers quickly and other institutions turned to the city to craft their messages to the public.

It was more work than we ever imagined," Matthew Grant, director of communications and strategic initiatives, told The Spectator's editorial board on Tuesday. People were fraying at the edges just a little bit. They knew it was a life or death situation particularly in the early days when there was no vaccines. Then we were trying to get people to take vaccines."

Meanwhile, the pandemic was moving so quickly that it made it difficult and time-consuming to validate emerging information," stated the report.

We all faced this challenge that this was a forever-changing issue," Mayor Fred Eisenberger said at the editorial board meeting. Monthly you had a different variant and weekly we had different policies and requirements."

For the future, the report recommends looking at ways to further streamline communications to be able to respond quickly in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment.

It also suggests forming a team early to provide guidance and interpretation of provincial orders.

Thorne says overall, the EOC's pandemic response was robust and successful. Key to that success was the public following the EOC's direction, which the majority of Hamiltonians did throughout the pandemic.

The community really stepped up," said city general manager Grace Mater. For the most part, this community really pulled together and really followed the rules and I think that was how we've been able to weather the storm so well."

The report exclusively looked at the role of the EOC and didn't include any outside review. A similar internal evaluation of the public health response is expected after the municipal election on Oct. 24.

Thorne called the report a guide for future emergencies.

Two years ago, we'd never closed city hall before," he said. We were learning on the fly at the beginning of the pandemic. We have a bit of a playbook now."

Joanna Frketich is a health reporter at The Spectator. jfrketich@thespec.com