The Ontario Science Advisory Panel released a statement confirming that it was informed by Public Health Ontario last week that it will be disbanding as of September 6.
Premier Doug Ford, however, told reporters during a news conference in Niagara Falls on Friday that the work previously taken off the table will be “absorbed” by Public Health Ontario and continue in some form.
A Department of Health spokesperson also told CP24 that “the work of the Scientific Advisory Panel (SAT) will continue” and that the “transition” currently in place “will help strengthen its provincial resources and ensure that it can continue to be powerful.  connections with the wider academic community”.
“We’re not breaking it up,” Ford insisted.  “They will have a full-time home in public health working with (Chief Medical Officer of Health) Dr.  (Kieran) Moore’.
The move to close the 35-member table and create a new structure under Public Health Ontario comes less than five months after the provincial agency announced it was taking over its “operation and oversight.”  The panel was previously hosted by the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
It also comes after the resignation of Science Advisory Table Co-Chair Dr.  Adalsteinn Brown, earlier this month.
In a memo sent to Public Health Ontario President and CEO Michael Serrar and released Friday, the remaining panel members said they would aim to complete their existing work before Sept. 6.
They then cited several “core principles” of their “original mandate,” including the ability to “identify and study any scientific question that our members felt would help Ontario fight COVID-19” and “communicate publicly and openly about the results of the investigation.”
The panel also shared several lessons they said they learned during the pandemic.
These lessons were: science matters, fairness metrics, transparency is critical, independence must be perceived and delivered, and timeliness and relevance are essential.
“I think the table as it exists right now will be out of business within the next two weeks.  I understand that Public Health Ontario and other parts of the government will be setting up a new advisory group.  I don’t know many details about it.  But it will be a different group than the one that has been around for the last two and a half years,” the panel’s scientific director, Dr.  Farhad Razak.
The Ontario Science Advisory Panel is made up of dozens of scientists and other experts who have volunteered their time to study many aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, often providing blunt advice to the government about the need for public health measures to contain of the spread.
The panel also had a separate modeling team responsible for frequent COVID-19 projections that often provided early warning of impending waves of the pandemic.
In a statement released earlier Friday, Razak noted that it had been a “great privilege” to serve at the table since its inception and said he hoped some of the “difficult” advice he provided ultimately “helped lessen the pain” during “its worst public health crisis in a century”.
Razak, however, warned that “the pandemic will remain a daunting challenge for the foreseeable future” and expressed hope that the “leaders on whom the table was built” will live on in some form.
“I think we are in a period of high risk.  I hate to say it because no one wants to hear it, but if you look at where we are right now, we’ve never seen this kind of strain in hospitals (in August), which is usually a recovery period before you go into a really bad slump. and the winter season,” he told CP24.  “There’s a very good chance that we’ll be dealing with both the flu and the waves of the coronavirus this winter with a really, really limited resource in terms of our staff and hospital capacity.  I just hope we have the will, despite our exhaustion, to pull together and get our health system through what will probably be a really tough autumn and winter.” 
The advice was often ignored by the government 
The science board’s advice often differed from the actions taken by the Ford government throughout the pandemic, with former science director Dr.  Peter Juni to be heard frequently on the airwaves to forcefully urge Queen’s Park to act more aggressively.
He has also at times found himself at odds with some of the decisions made by the Ford government, particularly its decision to close playgrounds and other recreational facilities during a devastating wave of the pandemic in the spring of 2021.
The dismantling of the board, at least in its current form, comes as cases are down in more than half of Ontario’s public health units, even as experts warn of a wave of declines in the pandemic that could further strain an already overburdened health care system. care of the Ontario System.
Students are also set to return to classrooms next month, with mask orders no longer in effect and many other temporary public health actions, such as grouping and mandatory physical distancing, no longer in effect.
At this point it is unclear what form the advisory group could take within Public Health Ontario.
In a statement provided to CP24, the government’s arms length agency said the terms of reference were “currently being finalised”.
It said that once complete the new mandate for the group would enable “the continued provision of a credible and independent scientific and technical audience”.  It also said that the members “will continue to consist of independent experts”.
For his part, Razak expressed optimism that the principles of independence that defined the panel’s work during the first two and a half years of the pandemic can be carried over to any new task force that may be formed.
“I think we should give it a fair chance,” he told CP24.