Ontario considers steps to safe reopening amid fears of COVID-19 variants

Thestar.com
Feb. 5, 2021
Rob Ferguson

Ontarians will get an indication next week what a path to business reopenings will look like as COVID-19 numbers decline amid concerns that more contagious variants spreading here could fuel a third wave of infections even more devastating than the first two.

Public health experts urged caution to avoid a repeat of resurgences past after Premier Doug Ford said Wednesday he was heading to an afternoon cabinet meeting to discuss upcoming moves with the state of emergency and stay-at-home orders imposed Jan. 12, which are due for a four-week review.

Ontario has confirmed 106 cases of COVID-19’s U.K. variant -- which caused daily new cases to triple in Britain before Christmas -- and one of a South African strain, with community spread underway.

“Our goal is to open up the economy safety,” Ford said at Pearson airport, where mandatory COVID-19 testing has been in place for arriving international travellers since Monday in a bid to stem a further influx of variants.

“I know a couple of hot zones might be a week later, but especially in the northern rural areas we want to get the economy opening up,” he said.

Ford’s office quickly clarified that a looming announcement will key on “what the next couple of weeks will look like” and acknowledged “we’ve got a bit of a ways to go” before restrictions are lifted.

The premier’s remarks came a day after Quebec said it would allow non-essential stores, hair and other personal care salons and museums to reopen next week though a curfew will remain as hospitals remain under pressure.

Chief medical officer Dr. David Williams said Monday that the number of new COVID-19 cases needs to be below 1,000 a day, and the number of hospital patients in intensive care below 150, before public health measures can be eased.

Ontario had 336 COVID-19 patients in ICUs, and 1,172 new cases in Wednesday’s report, a daily number believed to be artificially low because of snags with a new data reporting system. There were 67 more deaths.

Dramatically increased surveillance of the virus with rapid tests readily available in workplaces and schools, and sick days for essential workers, are crucial to keeping close tabs on the virus, epidemiologists and doctors said.

“It all hinges on our willingness to change the playbook,” University of Toronto infection control epidemiologist Colin Furness told the Star in a nod to a low level of rapid testing to date and Ford’s repeated refusals to bring in paid sick leave.

Furness warned variants could be “the seeds of the third wave.”

Peel medical officer Dr. Lawrence Loh, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie and her Brampton counterpart Mayor Patrick Brown continued to lobby Ford to bring in paid sick leave as Toronto called on the province to provide 10 paid sick leave days.

Loh said 25 per cent of Peel’s COVID-19 cases went to work with symptoms since August because they could not afford to stay home.

“How will we keep these aggressive new variants at bay if our front-line workers cannot afford to stake time off work to stop the spread?” Loh said at a news conference.

“We are now in a clear race between variants and vaccines.”

In Ottawa, federal public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam acknowledged case counts across the country have been declining.

“But with a seven-day average of 4,199 cases daily, we are still more than double the peak of the first wave so we need to hold fast on public health measures,” Tam said.

Last week, the head of the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health said computer modelling presented to the Ford government shows variants could be the “dominant” strain of COVID-19 in Ontario by March and present “a significant threat to control of the pandemic.”

The variants give the province “less room to relax and less room for error,” Adalsteinn Brown cautioned, saying maintaining public health measures is the best way to ensure schools can open safely.