During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier was a promoter of the conspiracy theory that SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus, was deliberately created in, and thereafter escaped from a laboratory. Such a claim has been refuted by other virologists.
> "David Naylor, a physician and former University of Toronto president who led a federal review into Canada’s response to the 2003 SARS epidemic, said hospital capacity probably plays a bigger role in Canadian decision-making than in the U.S. because Canada’s universal system means “the welfare of the entire population is affected if health care capacity is destabilized.”
> But he also argued that focusing only on hospital capacity could be misleading. “Both Canada and the U.S. have lower capacity than many European countries,” he wrote by email.
> The major difference between the two countries’ responses to Covid outbreaks is cultural, Naylor argues. In Canada, more than the U.S., policy is guided by a “collectivist ethos” that tolerates prolonged shutdowns and other public health restrictions to keep hospitals from collapsing." -article