Our COVID-19 Response
The COVID-19 pandemic created several challenges for the type 1 diabetes (T1D) community and meant that we had to find new ways of continuing our mission and the level of service and support expected from JDRF.
Like most other businesses and non-profits, we knew the pandemic would bring with it both financial impact and would require us to be flexible and agile to maintain our fundraising goals and programs.
We also knew that for the 300,000 Canadians living with T1D this added a new strain to the everyday management of the disease, particularly when we learned they were at greater risk for more significant outcomes should they contract the virus.
Once we had accurate and timely information we shared it with our community. This took the form of a number of email newsletters, social updates and a dedicated T1D and COVID-19 section on our website. We also held Facebook live events with experts, and launched our Let’s Talk T1D series, which included a back to school during COVID-19 event that was our most well-attended.
Once vaccines started to become available, we partnered with other Canadian diabetes organizations to advocate the National Advisory Council on Immunization (NACI) for earlier access and created a template for members of the community to use to petition their local public health unit and provincial health authority.
Despite the challenges of COVID-19, we were able to support our research commitments and continue to fulfill our mission throughout the pandemic. We have taken learnings from virtual medical care and are using them to help our stakeholders advocate going forward for better diabetes device coverage. The partnerships we created while petitioning the government for earlier vaccine access will allow us to better serve the T1D community. And many of our virtual events have continued well into 2021, allowing us to reach people coast to coast.
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