Limitations of COVID-19 testing and case data for evidence-informed health policy and practice.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) became a pandemic within a matter of months. Analysing the first year of the pandemic, data and surveillance gaps have subsequently surfaced. Yet, policy decisions and public trust in their country's strategies in combating COVID-19 rely on case numbers, death numbers and other unfamiliar metrics. There are many limitations on COVID-19 case counts internationally, which make cross-country comparisons of raw data and policy responses difficult. PURPOSE AND CONCLUSIONS: This paper presents and describes steps in the testing and reporting process, with examples from a number of countries of barriers encountered in each step, all of which create an undercount of COVID-19 cases. This work raises factors to consider in COVID-19 data and provides recommendations to inform the current situation with COVID-19 as well as issues to be aware of in future pandemics.

Enhancing health promotion and disease prevention in networked primary care

Health systems are moving away from traditional primary care (e.g., by increasingly shifting to group practice and interprofessional teams rather than solo practice primary-care providers), which is often siloed and results in barriers to timely access to care.(1) The Ministry of Health of British Columbia, which requested this rapid synthesis, is undergoing system transformation to better coordinate and potentially integrate primary care with some and community care and public-health services.(2) The transformation presents an important opportunity to improve primary care and preventive care services through improved management of clinical conditions coupled with health promotion and diseaseprevention services.