Modelling shows COVID-19 cases will stay high through summer without 6-week stay at home order

By Michael Ranger, Lucas Casaletto

Ontario has seen a wave of record-breaking pandemic numbers in recent days as the province could see 30,000 new COVID-19 cases with only 100,000 vaccinations a day by the end of May in a worst-case scenario.

The grim numbers are expected even with continuing vaccinations, though the modelling suggests daily increases could drop down to 10,000 a day with moderate public health measures.

In new projections presented today, the advisers say daily infections could approach 20,000 cases per day if strong measures aren’t imposed.

The curve could flatten to just under 5,000 cases per day with strong public health measures in place for at least six weeks and more than 100,000 vaccine doses administered on a daily basis.

With strong public health measures in place for four weeks along with over 100,000 vaccine doses given per day, the province could see around 10,000 daily cases by late June.

“Without stronger system-level measures and immediate support for essential workers and high-risk communities, high case rates will persist through the summer,” the advisers say among their key findings.

Data indicates Ontario’s COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are at their highest levels since the pandemic began.

Ontario’s science advisory co-chair Dr. Adalsteinn Brown says the province’s progress against COVID-19 is both frustrating and frightening.

He says after a year of fighting this pandemic, we are now entering the hardest stage.

“The biggest problem we now face, may be that we’re just too tired to notice,” said Brown.

“So I am begging you as part of the team to notice. Notice that our hospitals can no longer function normally. They are bursting at their seams, we’re setting up field hospitals, and we’re separating critically ill patients by helicoptering them across the province for care.”

Children’s hospitals are now admitting adults as patients – something that has never happened in Ontario – or even in Canada before.

The group says vaccines are not reaching high-risk people fast enough to overcome serious illness seen in hospitals.

Updated provincial modelling – April 16, 2021 (photo slides)

Premier Doug Ford is expected to announce new public health measures later today.

The Ford government implemented a stay-at-home order last week after health experts urged and called for the closure of non-essential businesses and services.

In a letter to all provinces and territories sent Friday morning, Ontario’s Deputy Health Minister Helen Angus said the province was short thousands of nurses and asked whether they had any to spare.


RELATED: Ford refuses help from Trudeau, Red Cross saying vaccine supply is the problem, not capacity


The pandemic, Angus said, had strained hospital capacity in southern Ontario, particularly intensive care.

Prime Minister Trudeau also said discussions were ongoing about providing more health-care workers, saying mobile units were already setting up hospital beds in Toronto and Hamilton.

Ottawa has also shipped more equipment such as oxygen units and drugs to treat COVID-19, he said.

 

The last round of modelling, released two weeks ago, predicted that without intervention, the province would see nearly 12,000 cases a day by the end of April under the worst-case scenario.

In the best-case scenario, with a stay-at-home order in effect for April and vaccinations administered at a constant rate, cases would peak at around 3,000 a day in mid-April and then drop back to below 2,000 a day by the end of the month.

The latest numbers from the province suggest things are closer in line with the worst-case scenario, which predicted around 5,000 cases a day by mid-April.

Hours after the province set a new record for daily infections on Thursday, Ontario’s associate medical officer of health said she had never seen things so bad.

“Unfortunately our situation is dire,” said Dr. Barbara Yaffe.

“At some of the previous press conferences I have referred to the situation as worrisome, and even scary. What is truly scary is that when I used those words before, our rates and our trends were nowhere near where we find ourselves today.”

It’s believed Premier Ford and his cabinet are looking at a host of other measures that could include restrictions to non-essential construction.

The number of patients flooding into GTA hospitals continues to grow with staff and resources being shuffled and patients being moved to deal with the demand.

Doctors are not only seeing more patients during the third wave, but many are showing up with much more severe symptoms of COVID-19 due to a rise in variants of concern (VOCs).

There are 38,341 active cases in the province, the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in the U.K. now makes up approximately 70 percent of the active cases in the province.


RELATED: ‘Sicker and younger’: Toronto ICU copes with pressure during third wave of pandemic


During the last round of modelling, the science table said that vaccinations have not successfully reached communities that are at the highest risk which has delayed the impact that they could have at tempering the severity of the third wave.

Approximately 22 percent of the province has now received at least one dose of the vaccine with over 3.5 million doses administered and more than 4.8 million doses delivered.

Ontario reported a pandemic high of 4,736 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday.

The rolling seven-day average of cases is up to 4,208.

That number is up nearly 1,000 cases from one week ago and it is the highest seven-day average at any point during the pandemic.

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