Hunker Down, Ontario

"Folks, there will be some really dark days ahead, some turbulent waters, but we will get through this."

"Now, more than ever, we need, I need you to do your part. Stay home, save lives, protect our health-care system."

"The last thing I've ever believed in, ever, is having a curfew that when you pull out of your driveway after eight o'clock, the police are chasing you down the street. I just do not believe in that."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford

"[As numbers of people in ICU units increase], we will have to confront choices that no doctor ever wants to make and no family ever wants to hear."

"There will be choices about who will get the care they need, and who will not. There will be choices about who receives oxygen or is transported to hospital."

"[Even under a] very optimistic [one percent growth scenario by the first week in February over 700 ICU beds would be full of COVID-19 patients. Should a] more reasonable range [of case increases ensue between three and five percent, the reality of 1,000 to 1,500 ICU-beds may be occupied]."

Dr.Steini Brown, co-chair, Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table

In Ontario, the driving concern of government and health authorities is the rising trend of increased COVID cases, and should such trends persist, deaths caused by COVID-19 could double from the current 50 to 100 by February's end, placing the coronavirus in competition for the single-greatest cause of mortality daily, surpassing cancer and heart disease. This is a potentially fearful reality should the current situation of rising cases not be arrested.

In Canada's most populous province, since the turn of the new year roughly 200 long-term care residents have died of COVID-19; over 1,000 deaths among long-term residents occurred since September once the second pandemic wave began. Fully forty percent of the province's long-term care homes are in outbreak. A 72 percent increase in hospitalizations for COVID has resulted across Ontario, leading to a large number of new patients being cared for in intensive care, while heart surgeries, cancer therapies and other health emergencies have been delayed, which will result in more deaths from those causes.

With the steadily rising 'positivity rate' in the population, the highest infection rates today are proving to be in younger people. Looking ahead to mid-February, Ontario could be seeing between 20,000 and 40,000 new cases daily if there is no success realized in stemming the rising tide. All of which points to the rates of non-compliance with government-issued recommendations and regulations. Of people surveyed, thirty-five percent claim never to have, or only occasionally, practised physical distancing.

 

The Ontario government has announced a state of emergency, a provincial stay-at-home order and new restrictions, as COVID-19 modelling revealed Tuesday that the health-care system is on the verge of being overwhelmed. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

 

Of the people questioned, thirty-two percent had visitors over to their homes in the last four weeks to share a meal or for a social gathering. One-third of this group failed to follow measures such as masking or indoor distancing. A scenario arises where teens gather to meet together outdoors eschewing the need to distance. They return home eventually to their families. Their parents then visit grandparents, not knowing that they are carrying with them the virus that will infect the older person. The deadly chain effect is inadvertent but prevalent.

The province's premier has now issued an emergency declaration, the second for Ontario throughout the course of the pandemic, which gives the government the authority to make new emergency orders under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act whereby the province gives the Ontario Provincial Police, local police, bylaw officers and provincial workplace inspectors the authority to ticket those who fail to comply with stay-at-home orders. Gatherings will be broken up and premises temporarily closed.

Schools in a wide rang of southern Ontario are to remain closed until the 10th of February. Recommendations for other regions will be dispensed by the chief medical officer of health by January 20. "You aren't leaving your house, simple as that", said Premier Ford, in distinguishing between a curfew and a stay-at-home order. Other than for necessary purposes such as food shopping, visiting a pharmacy, keeping a medical appointment, outdoor exercising with discretion, people must remain home.

Stores that offer curbside pick-up, hardware and liquor outlets must abide by a 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. opening framework. Rapid COVID tests weekly will be supplied in support of key sectors such as manufacturing, warehousing, supply chains and food processing with an aim to identify and isolate cases. All businesses must ensure that all employees who can work remotely will remain at home other than those who must be on site. Outdoor gatherings to be reduced to five people, total.

This, amidst fears of a growing proliferation of the more infectious variant of COVID-19 that has surfaced in the United Kingdom and has now been found in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. The initial such cases were found in travellers who had recently returned from the U.K. to Canada. Others are beginning to emerge from people who have no record of recent travel. "If that's confirmed, we have evidence then of community transmission. And that is a very serious concern", said Ontario's associate chief medical officer of health, Dr.Barbara Yaffe.

A storefront on Roncesvalles Avenue displays a "for lease" sign as part of a protest against the Ontario government's pandemic lockdown rules in Toronto on Tuesday Nov. 24, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jody White