The health and safety of staff, partners and the public are our top priority. Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, and out of an abundance of caution, we are taking all necessary precautions to “flatten the curve” which has resulted in the following:
• All IION staff are working from home
• All IION programs remain active
• IION is still serving clients via virtual meetings, teleconference calls, emails, in-taking and reviewing applications and processing claims. Please continue to reach out during this time.
Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Rob Deline, Executive Director at [email protected] Alternatively, you can also reach Matthew Doherty, Director of Operations at [email protected]
Staff Contact Information
Robert Deline, Executive Director – 705-498-1226
Matthew Doherty, Director of Operations – 705-845-0616
Emily Ryan, Research, Metrics & Outreach Manager – 705-498-5584
The purpose of the Near North Mitigation Alliance is to collectively reduce the impact of COVID-19 through a broad range of mitigation efforts, to share and communicate local companies and organizations efforts, products and services offered, evolving issues and success stories in dealing with COVID 19, including best practices and new knowledge, and share and find solutions to barriers and problems, all with the goal of gradually reopening and expanding businesses safely.
In order to have your company listed, please complete the NNMA survey link HERE.
Company name: Bella Vita North Bay Inc.
Contact name: Alexander Knecht
Phone number: 705-707-1622
Email: [email protected]
Description of product: Knight Shield (PDF link)
How the product offered for purchase?: Email
How is the product delivered to the consumer?: Curbside pickup or delivered to customer
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Company name: Motion Industries (Canada) Inc.
Contact name: Bill Dubois
Phone number: 705-476-3109
Email: [email protected]
Description of product: All personal protection product used in industry (Open PDF)
How the product offered for purchase?: Email, Phone, Fax (705 476 3064)
How is the product delivered to the consumer?: Curbside pickup or delivered to customer via local couriers
Company name: Axiom Audio
Contact name: Ian Colquhoun
Phone number: 888-352-9466
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://www.axiomaudio.com/axiomair-papr
Description of product: PAPR Machine (Powered Air Purifying Respirator)
How the product offered for purchase?: Email, Phone, Website
How is the product delivered to the consumer?: FedEx – delivery cost included in price
Company name: The Original Bug Shirt Company
Contact name: Julie Gohm
Phone number: 705-724-2090
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.bugshirt.com
Description of product: Face mask with 2 layers. The outer layer is 100% polyester, the inner layer is 100% cotton. There is a pocket in between to add a filter is desired. Please see website for more information on our fabric.
How the product offered for purchase?: Website, phone or email
How is the product delivered to the consumer?: Curbside pickup, storefront or delivered to customer
Company name: On Duty Equipment Ltd.
Contact name: Roger Rondeau
Phone number: 705-648-0986
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.onduty.ca
Description of product: Washable, reusable organic fabric face mask.
How the product offered for purchase?: Website, phone or email
How is the product delivered to the consumer?: Delivered to customer by mail or by delivery (local delivery only)
Company name: O’Baby
Contact name: Gini Kelly
Phone number: 705-706-2867
Email: [email protected]
Description of product: Hand made masks with filter inserts and hand made gowns
How the product offered for purchase?: Email, Instagram or Facebook @obabymuskoka
How is the product delivered to the consumer?: Curbside pickup, Delivered to customer by mail or by delivery (local delivery only)
Company name: Pure North Medical
Contact name: Mike Harrison
Phone number: 705-491-7022
Email: [email protected]
Description of product: Hand sanitizer that is Health Canada Approved. Bilingual Labels, Low Odour & Soft on Hands. Distribution available in Ontario & Quebec.
How the product offered for purchase?: Email or phone
How is the product delivered to the consumer?: Curbside pickup, delivered to customer.
Company name: Muskoka Brewery
Contact name: Todd Lewin
Phone number: 647-209-1401
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.muskokabrewery.com
Description of product: It is a W.H.O. recommended liquid hand sanitizer and has been approved by Health Canada for sale
Please note that this product is not currently, nor will it be, available for purchase by the public
Company name: Northland Air Care
Contact name: Jesse Ethier
Phone number: 705-474-4949
Email: [email protected]
Description of product: zytec 100ml BOV Hand Sanitizer Gel
Please note that this product is not currently, nor will it be, available for purchase by the public
Company name: Three H Furniture Systems Ltd.
Contact name: Patricia Willard-Inglis
Phone number: 705-647-4323
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.three-h.com
Description of product: Hospital beds and privacy screens (sneeze guards) (PDF Link)
How the product offered for purchase?: Email
How is the product delivered to the consumer?: Curbside pickup, delivered to customer through company logistics.
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Company name: Nor Environmental International Inc.
Contact name: Louis Brown
Phone number: 705-497-0357
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.nbcdefense.net
Description of product: Large scale centralized Hydrogen Peroxide decontamination of PPE and sensitive equipment.
This service is not available to the public.
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Company name: MetricAid
Contact name: Lora Webb
Phone number: 905-252-0260
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.nbcdefense.net
Description of product: MetricAid delivers a full-service scheduling solution for physicians throughout the country. We specialize in physician self-scheduling, staffing emergency departments, and ensuring that the physician supply meets patient demand. We are currently working with our clients throughout Ontario and Canada to plan their surge clinics, added on-call shifts and increased need. We are currently working with, innovating for, and onboarding several organizations like OntarioMD and OTN in Ontario and other provinces, as they mobilize hundreds of physicians to directly support our communities through the pandemic. Our healthcare providers and administrators are overburdened at the moment and we have the capacity to help alleviate this, allowing them to concentrate on managing the outbreak and their staff. Our technology is cloud-based and does not require any hospital IT support, it is intuitive for users and offers a robust reporting suite for hospital administrators to manage their resources during this crisis. If hospitals or healthcare organizations are struggling with how to manage their schedules we can help. Not only can we advise on the most efficient way to structure surge clinics or added on-call shifts, but we can also create schedule templates, build schedules and help to manage resources through our online portal. Because our system includes physician availability preferences, we are ideally positioned to help departments and clinics replace staff when illness occurs or add staff when unexpected patient surges occur. We can also help regions with the reallocation of resources, from site to site, when needed. Our goal has always been to improve timely access to care and to reduce both patient wait times and workforce burnout. Our staff, from the top down, are experts in this field and want to do what we can to provide support and minimize physician burnout through this challenging time. MetricAid has been supporting emergency departments and urgent care clinics throughout Canada since 2012. We also have clients in the UK and the US. We have a tested and respected product and an unmatched understanding of the unique needs of emergency medicine. We are onboarding clients quickly and efficiently and our service department is available to provide support through this health crisis.
This service is not available to the public.
PANDEMICS, PREPAREDNESS AND POLICY: LESSONS FROM SOUTH KOREA
From the Land of Morning Calm, military readiness, Samsung, K pop, astonishingly proficient female professional golfers, and kimchi. Now add one more element to the Korean brand: wrestling down COVID-19 . Referring to one day, April 15, South Korea is reporting only 27 new cases of Covid-19 and 5 new deaths (cumulative deaths stand at 225 and 75% of all cases are now classified as recovered). Nothing about Covid-19 is good. But South Korea’s relative success in ratcheting the virus downward is worthy of careful analysis. Still, there is no sense of relaxation on the streets of Seoul.
We can see clearly what they did. Why they did it and how they did it though, is the more interesting and revealing story. Foresight, planning, tenacity, ongoing vigilance, and stubborn grit come to mind.
By their own admission South Korean public health officials openly admit they were not properly prepared for the past SARS and MERS outbreaks. Refreshing. So back to the drawing boards they went.
As expected, public health policies in South Korea are led, but maybe unexpectedly, not dominated by public health experts. Medical specialists, clinicians, researchers, the business sector including pharma, biotechnology, diagnostics, reagents sectors, and the manufacturers of health PPE are required to be at the strategy table. The intelligence community is also an important participant. Finally, higher level national government representatives ensure that the over-riding societal concerns for economic stability and the safety of the population are tantamount. This formula may sound complex but the Koreans highly value consensus and they know how to work quickly. Political ideology and political correctness are not at the table. It is their view that policy without the practical means to achieve it means inevitable failure.
Somehow, the South Koreans knew that something dangerous was going on in Wuhan, China, in late November. Somehow, they had possession of viral samples in December. Somehow, they had the first made in Korea diagnostic tests available mid-January. Somehow, currently they are also exporting diagnostic tests to over 40 countries. Somehow, they completed an emergency pandemic response exercise, already in December 2019.
Somehow, when the pandemic hit the city of Daegu (the sources of 60% of all infections), the Koreans were ready with their made in Korea solutions, made possible by a comprehensive industrial ecosystem able to deliver high quality necessary products and services quickly on a domestic basis.
South Korea has the fastest internet connections in the world and already has very substantial 5G coverage (three different networks switched on in the first quarter of 2019). With a current population of 51 million South Korea also has a strong domestic capability of private healthcare companies (see above) to deliver scalable production and services in any national emergency. This includes vaccine production and active pharmaceutical ingredients. MADE IN KOREA SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, eh!
The common denominator is that multiple industry sectors were able to align and mobilize together for the common good.
South Korea’s overall response can be characterized as reflecting the capacity to unfurl a broad and comprehensive suite of mitigation components and solutions, all MADE IN KOREA and with superior performance. This includes strict border restrictions and scrutiny of arrivals, extremely aggressive and accurate testing (antigen and antibody), highly sophisticated and perhaps invasive tracking (preemptive legislation was in place to neutralize privacy concerns), isolation, quarantining, and social distancing, disinfection, early treatment, rapid roll out of clinical trials in therapeutics, adequate PPE for all medical and front line responders and having 100% of the population masked in public. The Korean population places a high value on masks and each citizen is provided with a minimum of two KF94 (providing a balance of comfort and protective capability) or similar masks (KF80) on a weekly basis. This means production capacity of 100 million masks weekly just for this purpose! Rather than offering a “false sense of security” they consider this another essential tool in fighting the corona virus infections and acts to reinforce their vigilance and determination to fight Covid-19.
Government communication to the public is clear, transparent, and unequivocal concerning the measures that have been taken. There are no confusing, oscillating, evolving advisories. Consequently, there is extremely high public approval ratings for the government’s manner of handling the pandemic. Interestingly, the workings of the WHO, however, are not held with the same degree of high esteem, who they consider to be a rather bloated organization, slow and often wrong.
The health care system in South Korea is not overwhelmed. Most people are still working. There is and has been no panic buying. There is seriousness, but also a sense of optimism that the measures taken are working. While there is a business slow down and the economy has been damaged, South Korea is positioned to recover quickly.
Robert Deline
Executive Director, Innovation Initiatives Ontario North/Health Care Investment Analyst
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The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Export Development Canada (EDC)
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Does your company require PPE as Canada returns to work?
BDC “Adapt your business to thrive in the new normal” webinar on June 15 at 12pm. You need to register for this webinar. The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting our everyday habits and creating an unprecedented level of uncertainty for entrepreneurs.
Resources to prevent COVID-19 in the workplace
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Guidance for Implementing the Opening up America Again Framework
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