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OTTAWA – For more than two weeks, almost every day, Justin Trudeau has descended the steps of Rideau Cottage to share the latest news on COVID-19. It is an image Canadians should get used to.

The decision to have the prime minister speaking regularly is a deliberate one to use the megaphone Trudeau has to shout public health information at Canadians and he is unlikely to put that megaphone down anytime soon.

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“The only objective of that is to spread that message as widely as possible, reach as many people as possible, so they hear it loud and clear,” said a member of Trudeau’s team speaking on background.

Television networks are carrying the prime minister’s daily announcements everyday live and the events are posted online to Twitter and Facebook, where they are racking up hundreds of thousands of views. Even when there is sometimes not much new to announce, his team believes there is value in having him out there reminding Canadians to stay isolated and wash their hands.

Whatever we can do to spread that message as widely as possible we will do

Ordinarily, it is not uncommon for the prime minister to be as much as an hour late to a press conference, but Trudeau has consistently come out of Rideau Cottage on schedule.

“It is important to bring as much normalcy and regularity to it as possible,” said the source.

On Monday evening, Trudeau posted a video shot in his kitchen encouraging people to stay at home and tagged celebrities Ryan Reynolds and Michael Buble asking them to shoot videos of their own. Those two have since tagged others and the chain of videos reminding people about social distance has spread online all week.