Ontario’s top public health official says that we are now in the midst of a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic driven by the spread of the more infectious B.1.1.7 variant.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams made the comment on Thursday afternoon, hours after the Ministry of Health reported more than 1,500 new cases of COVID-19 for a second straight day.
“We are in the third wave. It is just a matter of what kind of wave is it?” he said. “Is it an undulating wave? Is it a rapidly rising breaking wave? Is it going to look like wave two. We don’t know right now.”
Ontario reported 1,553 new COVID-19 cases and 15 additional deaths on Thursday, as the number of known active cases hit its highest point in five weeks.
The seven-day rolling average of cases now stands at 1,427, up from 1,251 at this point one week ago. Over the last three weeks it has risen by about 35 per cent.
There are now 12,814 known active cases of novel coronavirus infection across the province, along with 7,202 deaths and 303,500 recoveries.
It’s the highest the province’s active caseload has been since Feb. 11.
Speaking with reporters during a briefing, Williams said that he believes that the public health restrictions in Ontario have had “some efect on slowing the rise of the variants of concern," given that modelling initially suggested that they would double every seven to 10 days.
But he said that they are clearly escalating and that Ontario is in a “precarious” position as a result.
“Can we slow the rise and get away from the so-called hockey stick or exponential growth that we have seen in some other juridstictions?” he asked.
Williams had said as recently as Monday that it was “yet to be determined” whether Ontario was in a third wave of the pandemic, so his acknowledgement on Thursday that we are represents a significant shift in tone.
He said that some jurisdictions elsewhere in the world have been able to avoid an exponential growth in cases as the B.1.1.7 variant took hold and his hope is that Ontario will be able to do the same.
It should, however, be noted that each confirmed case involving a variant in Ontario is infecting 1.35 other people.
To put that number in context, Ontario as a whole hasn’t had a reproductive number that high since April of last year.
“Right now it looks like we are doing it. But I am not going to be complacent and say we have it done," Williams said.
15 more deaths
Provincial labs processed 58,560 tests in the past 24 hours, generating a positivity rate of at least 3.1 per cent.
Of the 15 deaths, one involved a resident of the long-term care system.
Across the GTA, Toronto reported 404 new cases, Peel Region reported 294 new cases, York reported 176 new cases and Durham reported 85 new cases.
Elsewhere in the GTA, Halton Region reported 38 new cases and Hamilton reported 80 new cases.
The numbers come as one of the heads of a body of epidemiologists advising the province went beyond merely calling for a new lockdown on Wednesday and described what he thought it should entail – a three week stay at home order in the GTA and Golden Horseshoe area with mandatory travel restrictions between regions.
The Ontario COVID-19 Science Table projected up to 4,000 cases per day in the province by early April even in its middle of the road scenario released last week.
Ontario vaccine distribution task force member Dr. Isaac Bogoch said Thursday he thought that was avoidable.
“Maybe we’ll be able to stick handle our way through this without a significant lockdown. I think it’s worth a try. But we need to keep all of our options open to protect our acute healthcare system.”
Hospitalizations continued an overall increase, with the Ministry of Health saying ICU occupancy due to COVID-19 surpassed 300 for the first time since Feb. 10.
There were 730 people in hospital on Thursday, and of those, 304 are in intensive care and 186 are breathing with the help of a ventilator.
Meanwhile, a Toronto intensive care unit doctor citing Critical Care Services Ontario data said there were 361 COVID-19 patients in intensive care at midnight on Wednesday.
A count of data released by local public health units and hospital networks on Thursday found 914 people in hospital.
Three new cases were confirmed to be variants of concern on Thursday, bringing the total confirmed through whole genomic sequencing to 1,218.
Public Health Ontario says more than 10,000 other samples have screened positive for a variant of concern and are awaiting sequencing.
The Science Table believes 53 per cent of all new daily cases are now variants of concern.
Another 58,000 doses of approved COVID-19 vaccines were administered on Thursday, bringing the total number of shots completed to 1,359,453.
More than 292,000 people have now completed their full two-dose course of inoculation.
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.
