York Region and Windsor-Essex will both be moved to the grey lockdown level in the province’s tiered framework for COVID-19 restrictions as of Monday, forcing retail stores to switch to curbside pickup only and a swath of other businesses such as gyms and personal care services to close entirely.
The Ford government made the announcement in a news release issued on Friday afternoon.
The move comes amid a surge in cases in both jurisdictions.
Over the last week York has reported an average of 193 new cases of COVID-19 per day and its weekly incidence rate per 100,000 people is now approaching that of Toronto – 123.2 versus 127.7. It is already much higher than Toronto's rate when it began a lockdown on Nov. 23 (97.2).
Meanwhile, Windsor has reported an average of 79.8 new cases per day over the last week and on Thursday its medical officer of health ordered all schools to switch to online learning only for the week leading into the holiday break in an attempt to limit transmission. He also made headlines earlier this week when he admitted that he told a colleague "let’s just close our office and go home. There’s nothing we can do" while discussing the latest numbers in the region.
What is allowed and what is not allowed in communities in the grey lockdown level
"We need to preserve as much (hospital) capacity as we can because we are also trying to conduct the procedures and surgeries that were postponed during Wave One. They simply cannot be postponed again because there are many people that need lifesaving cancer or cardiac surgeries. That is why we have to take the steps we are taking now,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said during a press conference at Queen’s Park on Friday afternoon. “We are following the data very, very closely.”
There has been an acceleration in case growth in York Region for weeks now but many local officials, including Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti and Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua had lobbied the province to keep the region in the red zone, at times arguing that there continued to be sufficient public health capacity despite the rising case counts.
Then earlier this week the CEOs of three major hospital networks in York Region released an open letter that warned that the municipality’s healthcare system was at a “tipping point.”
Following that, York Region’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Karim Kurji seemed to acknowledge that a lockdown might be inevitable, telling CP24 that the “various metrics do not seem to be boding well for us.”
“Our public health capacities were stronger and our hospitals were not as distressed at the time and we felt we had hit that sweet spot between the public health measures versus all those negative effects that come from mental health problems, social isolations and the economic ruin that some of those small business face (under a lockdown),” Kurji told CP24 on Friday afternoon following the province’s announcement. “At least we got about three weeks of an extension as it were and I am grateful to the province for having allowed us that time to see if we could have turned around our metrics.”
Kurji told CP24 that even this week Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams had indicated to him that he was willing to “reconsider” the decision to place York in a lockdown if it saw a dip in new cases.
But he said that the numbers “kept going up,” particularly among those in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.
"We did all we could to present a very united front at York Region and as well following the advice of our medical officer of health but the province obviously has more information and has a more comprehensive view of what's going on not only in our area but surrounding areas which also affects us,” Bevilacqua told CP24 on Friday. “I do think the narrative needs to change because this is lasting longer than most people thought it would and it is really having an impact on the psychology of individuals who have now seen these lockdowns occur more than once.”
In a statement issued on Friday afternoon, Scarpitti said that he respects the decision taken by the province but will continue to advocate for “fairer options for small businesses.’
He expanded on that in a subsequent interview with CP24, noting that he would like the province to consider either allowing small retailers to operate with strict capacity limits or prohibiting big box retailers from selling non-essential goods, as has been done in Manitoba.
He also told CP24 that he “doesn’t want York Region residents to get a false sense of security from the lockdown,” given that nearly half of all new cases are the result of close contact between friends, family and colleagues.
“Absolutely physically distance if you are dealing with someone outside your household and please, please stop having these social gatherings, which many people have actually indicated that they are going to have in one form or another over the holiday season. That does not bode well,” he said.
Head of UHN calls for even larger lockdown
The decision to move York Region into a lockdown alongside Toronto and Peel comes following the release of new modelling which warned that there will be more than 200 COVID patients in the ICU for the next month in even the best case scenario.
It also comes as the province reports 45 COVID deaths over the last 24 hours, the highest number since June.
In a message posted to Twitter after the announcement, President and CEO of the University Health Network Dr. Kevin Smith said that we are now in a situation in which the only answer might be an even wider lockdown.
“Truly wish I didn’t have to send this message but.... time to lockdown from Oshawa to Niagara, north to Barrie and west to London. Health care workers can’t sustain these demands and stresses,” he wrote.
In addition to moving York and Windsor into a lockdown, the province has also announced that it will designate three more public health units as red zones – Middlesex-London, Simcoe Muskoka and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph.
It is also moving the Eastern Ontario Health Unit into the orange zone and the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit into the yellow zone.
