Ontario Premier Doug Ford appeared receptive Thursday to the idea that a widespread lockdown is needed to stop the alarming rise in COVID-19 infection across the province, suggesting the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area could be targeted.
Repeating five times in 15 minutes that he would not hesitate to act and that “everything is on the table,” Ford remarked that the GTA and Hamilton area appears to be generating the lion’s share of infection as of late.
“It's really concentrated in one area. And that's a GTA, and I'll throw Hamilton, GTHA,” Ford said. “That's where we're seeing the spread to the exception of Halton. Halton’s still about 55 (cases per 100,000), but the other cases are just growing at a rapid pace. So everything's on the table.”
Earlier on Thursday, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) called on the provincial government to implement and enforce a four-week lockdown in every public health unit placed, or considered to be placed, in the “red” zone of the COVID-19 framework.
In a statement issued on Thursday morning, the association called for “immediate action” as the number of daily infections and hospitalizations related to the novel coronavirus continues to grow.
“A growing number of hospitals are grappling with outbreaks, and many have already had to cancel scheduled surgeries and other activity. Ontario’s health care professionals are being asked to carry a very heavy burden,” the OHA said.
“The situation is extremely serious. We are now in the holiday season and if members of the public choose to ignore public health measures and gather outside their households, the consequences risk overwhelming Ontario’s hospitals. Every health care system has its breaking point.”
For the third day in a row, Ontario has logged more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour period, setting a new single-day record high today.
The provincial death toll related to the disease also surpassed 4,000 this week.
Ford said implementing a harsher lockdown is not that simple, and suggested new isolation supports for people infected with COVID-19, some continuation of daycare, and new money for small businesses forced to close are parts of what he is considering.
“There's a lot of things to take into consideration. There's the education, making sure that we have daycare, making sure the educators are ready, making sure it's as simple as us having hotels for people that have COVID that we can put them into hotels instead of at home,” Ford said. “We have to make sure that we have something for the businesses. You can't we just can't keep going on like this for these for business owners, small business owners, we have to make sure there's, there's some help for the business owners as well.”
He even suggested adding new “interim” hospital capacity, without elaborating.
Other jurisdictions have had to construct field hospitals in athletics centres, conference halls, even aboard ships to make space for the numbers of COVID-19 patients requiring modest to acute treatment.
Ford said the duration and exact scope of what is next is still under consideration, but he did say he would not support a curfew.
“Is it going to be two weeks, three weeks, 28 days,” Ford said.
When asked, Ontario Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Williams told reporters Thursday he has made recommendations to cabinet for new measures to curb COVID-19.
When asked about a complete lockdown of the GTHA and Hamilton, he declined to confirm, saying only that what he was being asked in public reflected the private debate occurring between his office, area mayors, public health leaders and others involved in public health at the provincial level.
“The questions you are raising – they are all the ones that are on the table – this is all in the discussion we are having.” Williams said. “We are having vibrant discusssions with those (medical officers of health)."
The OHA is recommending that, as a minimum, the Ontario government implement a four-week lockdown in every public health unit with an infection rate of 40 per 100,000 people or higher. They also ask that the lockdown be “robustly” enforced.
Under the province’s current framework, regions with a weekly incidence rate of more than 40 people per 100,000 are placed in the “red” zone, the final category before a full lockdown. Public events and social gatherings are limited to five people indoors and 25 people outdoors and establishments such as restaurants and gyms are allowed to remain open for in-person dining with strict capacity limits.
As of Thursday, seven public health units are in the “red zone,” including Durham, Halton, Hamilton, Middlesex-London, Simcoe-Muskoka, Waterloo and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph.
Four other health units; Toronto, Peel Region, York Region and Windsor-Essex, are in a lockdown.
According to Wednesday’s provincial epidemiology report, there are nine other public health units reporting a weekly incidence rate of more than 40 people per 100,000, using the week of Dec. 6 to Dec. 12 as a reference.
Speaking late Thursday morning, Durham Region Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Kyle said that while he doesn’t believe a lockdown is necessary in his area, a GTA-wide shutdown may make sense in light of a rise in cases he partially attributes to the “spillover effect.”
“We do have quite a number of outbreaks, but for the most part they are very short lived and go into containment measures. And although the hospital and public health unit are stretched they are certainly not overwhelmed,” Kyle said. “So my guess would be we would stay put for now but it is provincial call and it may makes sense to take a more broad GTA wide approach.”
“But the metrics certainly have not worsened considerably from when we were placed in red recently. I think there are spillover effects and what impact York Region going into grey will have in Durham.”
Kyle said he has heard anecdotal reports of chartered buses bringing residents in Toronto, which was placed under a lockdown order in mid-November, to malls in Durham Region.
“We have been working with mall management to try to control the inflow of shoppers and to ensure that there are appropriate adherence to gathering limits. So certainly, we are hearing about that on the shopping side and it stands to reason that others may be coming into Durham region for other purposes.”
There were 933 people receiving treatment for COVID-19 in Ontario hospitals on Thursday, according to local public health units and hospital networks. Approximately 276 people were in intensive care due to COVID-19 across the province, according to Critical Care Services Ontario.
At Humber River Hospital in Etobicoke, CEO Barb Collins said they are "managing" the pace of elective procedures in the facility to ensure that all COVID-19 patients could get a bed when they need it.
They have 48 beds in their intensive care unit, and are currently treating 53 people with that level of care.
She said they have reassigned nurses and other staff to the ICU to deal with it being over its normal capacity.
Toronto officials have said they are already in discussion with the province over the implementation of stricter and more broad lockdown measures over the holidays in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the city, but no details have been provided regarding what that would look like.
Michael Garron Hospital intensivist Dr. Michael Warner told CP24 Thursday that he has lost five people in his ICU in the past four days, and urged everyone to stay home and not gather during the holidays.
“They died alone, with the nurse holding their hand and their families watching on Zoom if we could get the iPad up in time. Is there anything more horrible than that?”
He said he and his staff have to witness awful, heartbreaking situations caused by the virus each and every day.
“How about having two members of the same family in my ICU, talking to each other through Zoom, talking about whether the older person wanted to be intubated because the younger one was their substitute decision maker,” Warner said.
“I know my colleagues are watching right now and this really happened and this is happening.”
