Director of Ontario's science table calls for three-week lockdown in Golden Horseshoe as province reports more than 1,500 new COVID-19 cases

The director of Ontario’s science table is calling for a three-week lockdown in Ontario’s COVID-19 hotspots in an attempt to stave off the explosive growth in cases that some experts believe is likely to occur in the next few weeks due to the prevalence of the more infectious B.1.1.7 variant.

Dr. Peter Juni made the comment during an interview with CTV News Toronto on Wednesday.

His warnings come as Ontario reports 1,508 new COVID-19 cases of COVID-19, its highest single day total where no data collection errors were disclosed in more than a week.

“What we're talking about here predominantly is the Golden Horseshoe, the Golden Horseshoe has a major problem, and we need to tackle this,” Juni said.

Juni said that an “early and hard” lockdown in the Golden Horseshoe could reduce the length of lockdown required from weeks to months and give the province just enough time to vaccinate a significant number of Ontarians.

He said that if a lockdown isn’t imposed it would be “next to impossible” to avoid a damaging third wave.

“This is not about miracles. This is about biology and epidemiology here,” he told CTV News Toronto.

Rolling seven-day average now stands at 1,361

COVID cases have been steadily increasing in Ontario for several weeks now and the rolling-seven day average now stands at 1,361, a notable rise from 1,238 a week ago.

Of the 14 new fatalities confirmed on Wednesday, five were among long-term care home residents. The province’s virus-related death toll now stands at 7,187.

Provincial health officials also logged four more lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 variants of concern on Wednesday, three of the B.1.1.7 variant and one of the B.1.351 variant.

More than 9,600 additional cases have screened positive for a variant in Ontario but are still awaiting whole genome sequencing to confirm their lineage.

The Ministry of Health says 1,488 more people have recovered from the disease in the past 24 hours, resulting in 12,512 active cases, up from 11,283 a week ago.

Ontario labs processed more than 49,100 tests yesterday, a significant increase from 28,526 tests the previous day.

Currently, there are 35,201 tests under investigation across the province.

Within the Greater Toronto Area, 542 of the latest COVID-19 cases are in Toronto, 253 in Peel Region, 107 in York, 42 in Durham and 32 in Halton. All five of these regions saw a day-over-day increase in case counts.

Of Ontario’s 34 public health units, 13 reported 30 or more new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.

Provincial health officials said a total of 741 patients are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19 across the province, down 20 from a day ago.

But according to the latest data from public health units and hospital networks there are at least 963 patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 infection across the province.

Of those hospitalized, provincial health officials said there are 300 in intensive care units and 190 are breathing with the help of ventilators.

However, Dr. Kali Barrett, critical care physician at University Health Network, tweeted today that there are 355 patients in ICUs across the province and 205 on ventilators, according to recent data from Critical Care Services Ontario.

To date, there have been 321,956 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ontario and 302,257 recoveries since the pandemic started over a year ago.

As of Tuesday evening, more than 290,600 Ontarians have been fully vaccinated since mid-December.

The province has administered more than 1.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, with 58,202 alone yesterday.

The latest numbers come as the Ontario Hospital Association and a body of epidemiologists that advise the province on pandemic response said on Monday that the province has entered a third wave of the pandemic.

Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams said that Ontario is now in a "race against time" with COVID-19 vaccine rates and variants of concern both increasing.

The numbers used in this story are found in the Ontario Ministry of Health's COVID-19 Daily Epidemiologic Summary. The number of cases for any city or region may differ slightly from what is reported by the province, because local units report figures at different times.