Talk:Theresa Tam

"Chief Health Officers of Canada" template

The "Chief Health Officers of Canada" template is not editable because "Wikipedia does not have a template with this exact title", despite clicking on the Edit link on the template! This is an issue because the Alberta and British Columbia public health officers have been interchanged. --Craig (t|c) 18:59, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

It's been fixed, thanks for bringing it into attention! _dk (talk) 20:24, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I see that the template is now editable. Odd that it wasn't before. --Craig (t|c) 22:56, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 April 2020 - additional info regarding Theresa Tam

PLEASE ADD (nothing to remove)

Tam has served on three World Health Organization (WHO) emergency committees: Ebola, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and poliovirus.

REF: https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/189/10/E418.full.pdf

EBOLA REF: https://www.who.int/ihr/procedures/biographies_ebola_review_committee/en/

MERS REF: https://www.who.int/ihr/procedures/emerg_comm_members/en/

POLIOVIRUS REF: https://www.who.int/ihr/procedures/poliovirus-ec-former-member-biographies/en/ Emmaplant (talk) 20:48, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. DarthFlappy (talk) 19:17, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 May 2020

Tam refused to tell people wear a mask. She believed wearing masks would give people a false sense of security despite the fact that wearing masks saved lots of lives.

Add additional sources (when Teresa Tam is quoted but no source is given) and additional context and comments of her actions regarding Covid-19. The quotes only cite her as saying that essentially the disease was not a concern, but these quotes are all from early on in the pandemic when there were no cases in Canada and little about the disease is known. There should also be information added to include what she has done since it came to Canada and the changes in guidelines as the disease became to be understood as a more serious threat. Cmichdee (talk) 01:30, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Cmichdee:  Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. GoingBatty (talk) 01:42, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Discrimination

I find much of the text relating to Dr. Tam's reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic to be troubling. It betrays a very critical, possibly racist and certainly unfair and slanted orientation.

Please rephrase that section to include more balance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WesternWilson (talk • contribs) 21:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 May 2020

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-dr-tams-about-face-on-masks-damages-trust-at-a-crucial-time/ 216.59.246.180 (talk) 14:35, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

 Not done. It's not clear what changes you want to make. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:12, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Publications by Theresa W.S. Tam, MBBS (UK), FRCPC, FAAP

• Theresa W.S. Tam, Agence de la santé publique du Canada, Mendeley.

Date of birth?

Born 1965. Didn't find exact date (day and month?).

I am contacting Health Canada to get this info. 🙏 41.82.176.190 (talk) 19:09, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Please do not, per WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLPPRIVACY. Citing (talk) 17:56, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 October 2020

Please add her post-nominals of "FRCPC" or "Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada." It is standard practice across Wikipedia pages for Canadians to include their non-academic honours' post-nominals (e.g. "PC", "CC", "QC", "CMM", "CD", "FRSC", et cetera). 138.51.252.205 (talk) 03:23, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Done.Citing (talk) 14:34, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 pandemic

I have real issues with this section. It's pretty much all a bullet-point list of negative, cherry-picked factoids which seem to have been written by an anti-masker and anti-vaxxer with an agenda to make Tam sound incompetent. She may or may not be incompetent, but if she is incompetent then whoever has written this section needs to come right out and make that statement and provide the necessary citations to back that up. However, the fact is that Tam has been in her position for about five years now. If she *was* incompetent, then assumedly she'd have been fired by now. The fact that she hasn't makes this focus on a few bad predictions (which were very likely made by others in the same department and in other countries) uncalled for, and very non-NPOV. --Craig (t|c) 12:19, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

It is indeed a very poorly written section. I've been monitoring this article but mostly to keep out the wildest and worst conspiracy theorists.Citing (talk) 16:22, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Understood. I should help the situation by rewriting it, and I'll put that on my to-do list. --Craig (t|c) 07:59, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

I have finally looked at this, and I feel that the whole "COVID-19 pandemic" section should be removed. It doesn't make any sense except as a plethora of minute-by-minute gripes about the pandemic by anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. The entire long paragraph about Derek Sloan is better placed (and does already exist) in Derek Sloan's own article.

I suggest that this sentence be moved up to the "Career" section:

"On 23 April, Tam was appointed by Justin Trudeau to a new advisory body, the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, whose mandate he declared to be the coordination of serological surveys across the country."

And I suggest that the "COVID-19 pandemic" section be reduced to this paragraph and included as part of the "Career" section:

As was typical at the time, as the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, she made numerous statements that garnered attention, both positive and negative, from the public and from some politicians. Some statements proved to be minimising of the effects of COVID-19, and some were closer to the mark. In March 2021, an Auditor General's report described how Tam and the Public Health Agency of Canada failed to fully comprehend the threat posed by COVID-19 to Canadians. In particular, it was noted that the Agency waited until the day after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic, at which point the risk level was raised from its previous position of "low".

Or I might futz around a bit and combine that paragraph and the preceding sentence into one, with wikilinks of course.

--Craig (t|c) 07:39, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

This is done. As I suggested I would, I put a little more time and effort into the final product, so it's slightly different than my suggestion, and I kept the distinct "COVID-19 pandemic" section. However, I believe it's a significant improvement over the significantly one-sided non-NPOV list of anti-everything factoids that were there. --Craig (t|c) 16:19, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 22 December 2021

Hi - it's MBBS not BMBS.... CVGasman (talk) 00:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@CVGasman done. Apparently both are acceptable but MBBS is more common and she's used it in a publication herself (eg). Citing (talk) 00:32, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Early life and education

The early life citation points to Chatelaine that parenthetically mentions Hong Kong and the UK. A person of such prominence ought to have her exact education posted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.138.33.183 (talk) 02:37, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

As far as I know, no reliable sources have covered her early life in that much detail.Citing (talk) 18:59, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Head paragraph

Please add her full English name Wing-Sze Theresa Tam to the head paragraph of the article, thank you! --173.68.165.114 (talk) 09:28, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:53, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish: College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has one. Also consider its URL structure of the source, there should have been a dash between Wing and Sze when they put it but somehow got invisible due to technical issue of their website. --173.68.165.114 (talk) 18:54, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Urgent Plea to Consider the Far-Reaching Implications of the WHO Pandemic Treaty

This is not Dr. Tam's inbox. Talk pages are for discussing improvements to articles, see WP:TALK for more information.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Dear Mrs. Tam, I write to you at a crucial juncture as the World Health Organization (WHO) moves closer to finalizing the Pandemic Treaty. This correspondence comes from a place of deep concern for the future of global health governance and the preservation of individual freedoms and national sovereignty. Expanded Scope of WHO Authority: The latest draft of the treaty proposes an expanded definition of 'Party', moving beyond states and potentially undermining national sovereignty and individual healthcare rights. This raises significant concerns about the dilution of individual countries' rights to self-governance in health policy and citizens’ ability to make their own decisions for themselves and loved ones. Centralized Health Policy Management: It entrusts the WHO with significant authority over global health governance. This shift in power dynamics risks overshadowing the autonomy of member states; all funded by billions and billions of taxpayer money. Unilateral Pandemic Declaration: The treaty grants the WHO Director-General the power to independently declare pandemic status, which could have sweeping economic and civil liberty implications. Restrictions on Freedom of Expression: Vague provisions aimed at combating 'false' information would lead to limitations on free speech, fines, and even jail as already happened during the lockdowns and insanity of the COVID response. We ask you to stand with us in opposing the WHO Pandemic Treaty in its current form. Your actions during these negotiations will have a lasting impact on the world. Please consider the voices of those you represent and the foundational principles of freedom and sovereignty as you make your decisions. Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. Sincerely, Tom Wysocki, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., P.Eng., University of Toronto, Canada 199.7.157.43 (talk) 00:48, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Lifting semiprotection

I propose lifting protection as discussed here. User_talk:Earl_Andrew#Theresa_Tam. LibStar (talk) 02:15, 6 April 2024 (UTC)