How will the holidays affect COVID case counts? Three charts that dive into grim prospects, home and abroad – NiagaraFallsReview.ca

The celebratory spirit embodied by Ontario’s first COVID-19 vaccinations Monday was tempered by the province’s regional health units reporting more than 2,400 new cases of the virus with the Christmas holidays just around the corner.

Health officials continue to stress that Ontarians should adhere to social distancing guidelines and regional restrictions and not let the promise of a vaccine persuade them to let their guards down. Indeed, the good news surrounding the first vaccines administered in the province came as seven regional public health units saw their statuses tightened under the government’s COVID-19 Response Framework, including two more regions stepped up to lockdown.

Toronto is now in the last week of a four-week lockdown, but Dionne Aleman, a University of Toronto professor and expert in pandemic modelling, said the province shouldn’t let up, and instead, the rules should become even stricter and schools should close earlier than planned.

“Schools can close now — a week or two early in advance of winter break — and ideally open a week or two after break,” said Aleman, “acknowledging the fact that people are going to gather with their families regardless of what the public health situation is and what the guidelines restrictions are.”

The extra time would “allow anyone infected now time to move out of contagious period before they interact with the rest of their family over the holidays,” said Aleman. “And likewise if they become infected at that time, to have time to move out of the contagious period before they return to school.”

This week, York Catholic District School Board moved a cohort of high school students, who were scheduled to start in-person classes on Wednesday, to online learning for the week.

“We have decided to begin the new cohort schedule entirely remotely, so that students and staff will not be exposed to additional contacts prior to Christmas,” said a spokesperson for the board.

The number of active cases in Ontario public schools continues to trend upwards, with in-person classes in 13 Toronto schools now shuttered until January.

Toronto Public Health continues to lead case counts in Ontario, with 638 reported on Monday, followed by Peel Region with 504, Windsor-Essex County with 195, Hamilton with 150, and York Region with 148. Lockdowns took effect for both York and Windsor-Essex Monday, while Toronto and Peel remain under those restrictions.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, several European nations are struggling with increased case numbers and are taking further steps to limit the spread, especially over the Christmas break when many are expected to gather with family.

What follows is the Toronto Star’s weekly roundup of key indicators in Ontario’s fight against COVID-19 and a look at how other nations are faring, along with expert commentary to help readers get a sense of what it all means.

Provincial woes

On Monday, there were 2,440 new cases of the virus in Ontario, according to a count of cases reported by the province’s regional public health units, more than three times the 706 cases reported on April 22, at the height of the first wave.

Aleman had high hopes that technology might make this pandemic different than others — that with information so readily available about the disease as well as safety measures, and with apps like Zoom and FaceTime to keep us connected, “we would all be much more mindful and much better about locking down, about being restricted.”

But she said what’s happening in all the populated cities in the province is exactly in line with traditional pandemic progress and pandemic models, which show there’s a small wave at the beginning, a lull, and a huge wave comes after that.

“This has happened time and time again,” said Aleman, “with every pandemic for which we have data about going back to Spanish influenza in 1918.”

Aleman said there is more the province could do to slow down transmission of the virus, such as letting essential businesses to operate but closing all others, even for curbside pickup.

“My concern is that a major issue is that employees still have to come into work as usual at restaurants and small retailers,” said Aleman. “They’re taking the TTC to get to work. They’re working in close quarters, in small stores.”

Two more regions in lockdown

On Monday, Windsor-Essex and York Region moved into the grey category, joining Toronto and Peel, which have been in lockdown since Nov. 23.

Reported cases of the virus in Windsor-Essex reached a high of 195 on Monday and the area has 21 outbreaks, including nine in workplaces and seven in schools.

Five people died over the weekend, all over 70.

Stores in the area were reportedly crowded on the weekend and Dr. Wajid Ahmed, the area’s medical officer of health, said he was disappointed with the number of people who were out before the lockdown took effect.

Schools there are closed this week. In a news conference Monday, Ahmed said he would re-evaluate during the holiday break whether they should reopen as scheduled in early January.

“When you have this high level of community transmission and this high number of active cases in the community, it puts anything that is open at a high risk,” said Ahmed. “Despite the importance of having in person school learning, the risk in the school setting also increases.”

He said conversations were taking place at the provincial level and in other health units to develop criteria to assess risk of transmission in schools.

In York Region, hospital capacity is increasingly under stress, which is one of the factors that can prompt a lockdown, but Karim Kurji, the region’s medical officer of health, said in an email that the pressure was coming from patients being transferred into area hospitals.

“There are only eight York Region residents in the ICU, compared to our 1.2 million residents,” he said.

The region has a voluntary, school-based testing program in 30 schools and Ontario Health has so far screened more than 1,500 students.

Kurji said that the positivity rate is 1.1 per cent of tests is “very low.”

“I know this may come as a disappointment to some of our residents and businesses, however we have always respected provincial decision making since they have guided us well during this pandemic,” said Kurji of the lockdown in a public release on Monday.

“We want to keep all our vulnerable people safe and safeguard the health care capacity in the region,” said Kurji.

Aleman said she wouldn’t be surprised to see other regions moved into lockdown by the province.

“Once some areas have moved into lockdown, now there’s more political will to make it happen elsewhere,” she said.

Hamilton has been in the control, or red, classification for three weeks, which is one below lockdown, and cases continue to increase there.

Three more areas of the province moved into that same category this week, including Middlesex-London Health Unit, Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.

Also on Monday, the Eastern Ontario Health Unit moved to the restrict (orange) category and Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit moved to the protect (yellow) category.

U.S. hits grim milestone

South of the border, the U.S. marked the disturbing milestone of 300,000 deaths due to COVID-19, a disheartening piece of news even as the first vaccinations using the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine began.

Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse in New York, was the first person in U.S. to receive the vaccine Monday.

“I would like to thank all the front-line workers, all my colleagues who have been doing a yeoman’s job to fight this pandemic all over the world,” Lindsay said in response to a question from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, watching remotely. “I feel hopeful today, relieved. I feel like healing is coming.”

Close to three million doses of the vaccine are expected to arrive in the U.S. over the next few days and will be distributed to over 600 locations according to each state’s adult population.

More than 16.3 million infections of COVID-19 have been reported in the U.S., the most in the world. It is expected that some 20 million people in the U.S. will receive the first of two shots of the vaccine by the start of 2021.

“The deaths in the U.S. are going to continue at a record pace for some time to come because deaths lag,” said Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, noting that he predicts COVID-19 will cost more American lives than the Second World War, which saw about 405,000 deaths.

He added that the American population’s general distrust of government, coupled with vaccine hesitancy and rhetoric from anti-vaxxers means the country has an uphill battle in its quest to inoculate enough people against the virus.

“You don’t need to vaccinate everyone to make COVID go away but you need to vaccinate about three-quarters of the population. So that makes the job easier and yet three-quarters is going to be a pretty hard threshold to reach,” he said.

“This is not the beginning of the end. This is another chapter. The beginning of the end will be sometime next year.”

European nations continue to struggle

Many European leaders are stepping up restrictions, even those that stretch over the Christmas holidays, in an effort to prevent a surge of cases that may result if families gather during the break.

In Italy, where Europe’s COVID-19 pandemic began, local media are reporting that officials are contemplating instituting strict measures including a countrywide lockdown that would see the closing of all stores except those deemed as essential, extended hours for night curfews and restricting citizens’ movements. The new rules are expected to cover the time period from Christmas Eve to beyond New Year’s Day.

On the weekend, Italy surpassed the U.K. to become the European nation with the most COVID-19 deaths. The country reported 484 deaths on Sunday from the virus, increasing its total death toll to 64,520, compared to Britain’s 64,170, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

As of Monday, Italy had reported 1,843,712 cases of the virus since the pandemic began, the third-highest in Europe behind the U.K.’s 1,849,403 and France’s 2,376,852.

Reacting to photos of Italian cities packed with holiday shoppers over the weekend, Italian Minister of Regional Affairs Francesco Boccia wrote on Twitter: “The photos of the gatherings show unjustifiable, irrational, irresponsible scenes. I understand people’s desire to go out, but it would be enough to enter a hospital to realize the general condition in which the country finds itself.”

Furness noted that Italian authorities are battling a general lack of faith in government in the population, a phenomenon that helped the spread of the virus in the country’s north in the spring.

“I don’t think that’s changed,” he said. “It’s a flavour of distrust but it’s less oriented toward suspicion and more oriented to lack of faith in the government and the government’s ability to do things.”

After avoiding Britain’s highest level of restrictions to date, the capital of London will be moved up in the country’s “tier” system based on the severity of risk of infection. On Wednesday, London will enter the “very high” Tier 3 from “high alert” Tier 2, joining other cities such as Greater Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham. Under Tier 3, bars, pubs, cafes, and restaurants must close, as well as all indoor entertainment venues such as cinemas and theatres. Travel between different regions is also discouraged.

On Monday the U.K.’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that scientists have identified a new variant of COVID-19 in the southeast of England that he said “may be associated with the faster spread” of the virus in that region.

“I must stress at this point that there is currently nothing to suggest that this variant is more likely to cause serious disease and the latest clinical advice is that it’s highly unlikely that this mutation would fail to respond to a vaccine, but it shows we’ve got to be vigilant,” Hancock told British lawmakers Monday.

Despite countrywide restrictions, the British government is letting citizens gather in Christmas bubbles with as many as three households.

In northern Europe, Sweden is facing crowded ICUs at a time when many health care workers are choosing to leave the profession. Capacity in the capital Stockholm’s intensive care units is at 99 per cent, prompting fears that hospitals won’t be able to cope with a further growth in cases.

Sineva Ribeiro, chair of the Swedish Association of Health Professionals told Bloomberg that there was already a shortage of specialized nurses when the pandemic began, a situation that has only gotten worse, “which makes it harder to expand ICU capacity.”

The country’s national broadcaster SVT reported Monday that the number of patients being treated for COVID-19 in hospital reached an all-time high of 2,389.

“The government trusted people too much in a sense,” said Furness. “Although Sweden is very socialist and although they have a very clear orientation to the collective — I mean, look how high taxes are — they actually still have a cultural self-concept of the primacy of the individual.

“I think that’s why of all the countries around, Sweden sort of tipped towards this idea of ‘no we’ll be safe because we’re oriented to the collective, we really want to enact this primacy of the individual.’ That was just a real mess.”

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