Stay-at-home order should stay in effect as province monitors U.K. variant, Simcoe Muskoka’s top doctor says

Simcoe Muskoka’s top doctor says the provincewide stay-at-home order should be extended as variants of concerns have emerged across the province.

Dr. Charles Gardner, who is the medical officer of health for the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU), said Premier Doug Ford should have waited to lift the order that is set to expire as early as tomorrow for some areas of the province.

“I think there's definitely a risk being taken by the province in moving into the framework at this time as opposed to continuing with the stay-at-home order and the shutdown,” Gardner said during a virtual news conference Tuesday afternoon.

“I think we need to be ready to move right back again into shutdown and the stay-at-home order if the numbers start to go up,” he added.

The order, which was implemented on Jan. 14, urges residents to stay home unless they need to go out for essential reasons, including medical appointments, exercise and work.

On Monday, the Ford government announced that the order will be lifted for three public health units in eastern Ontario as of 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, including Hastings Prince Edward Public Health; Kingston, Frontenac, and Lennox & Addington Public Health; and Renfrew County Public Health.

On Feb. 16, the order will end for 28 other public health units across the province, including Simcoe Muskoka. And lastly, the order is set to be lifted for the COVID-19 hot spots of Toronto, Peel Region and York Region on Feb. 22.

The province said it will announce which part of its tiered colour-coded reopening framework each region will enter in the coming days.

The decision on whether to lift restrictions will be "subject to final review of the trends and public health indicators," Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said at a news conference on Monday.

Gardner said he is worried that the province is losing “an important control measure” that is effective in reducing virus transmission, particularly as new cases of a variant of concern that first emerged in the U.K. are surfacing across the province.

“I'd rather that he waited until it was less precarious, that he had lower numbers. And, for that matter, you've got the emergence of these variants of concern, I'd rather we waited to see what happens with that,” Gardner said.

Simcoe Muskoka is currently dealing with cases of the U.K. variant at three institutions coping with a COVID-19 outbreak, including Bradford Valley Care Community Long-Term Care Home, Waypoint Centre Hospital and Roberta Place Long-Term Care Home.

The region made headlines last month after declaring that the U.K. variant, also known as B.1.1.7, was identified at Roberta Place as the home was combatting a significant outbreak of the deadly virus.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 126 residents and 104 staff have tested positive for COVID-19 at the home and 65 of those cases were confirmed as the U.K. variant. Samples from another 18 people have screened positive for the mutation that is consistent with being a variant of concern, but have to undergo genome sequencing to confirm if they are the U.K. variant.

Sixty-nine residents and one caregiver at the home who contracted COVID-19 have died.

Gardner said the outbreak at Roberta Place could be declared over soon as active cases are decreasing.

“Transmission has gone down quite dramatically. So we're getting very few new cases happening, associated directly with that outbreak and also out in the community in the homes, which is certainly a very good thing,” he said.

But he warned that there is a concern for transmission in the community as there are some cases that have tested positive for a variant of concern and are awaiting further testing.

“We've seen elsewhere in Simcoe County now a couple of workplaces in community settings which have a variant of concern, and we need to watch that very closely to see if it turns out to be the U.K. variant,” he said.

Meanwhile, Waypoint Hospital has one confirmed case of the U.K. variant and 10 cases that have screened positive for a variant of concern, and Bradford has nine cases of the U.K. variant and four cases that have screened positive for a variant of concern.

To date, there are 133 lab-confirmed cases of the U.K. variant in Simcoe Muskoka, up five from a day ago. This number makes up more than half of Ontario’s 227 cases of the U.K. variant. There is also one case of the South African variant, also known as B.1.351 in the province and one case of the Brazilian variant, known as the P.1 variant.

There are a total of 64 cases that have screened positive for a variant of concern in Simcoe Muskoka, up 10 from Monday.

As of Tuesday afternoon, there have been 5,787 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Simcoe-Muskoka and 169 virus-related deaths.