Well, it is
June 1 and after several months of dealing with the pandemic, Ontario’s daily number
of new cases was 404. Oddly enough, the
internet “error” signal as your case number is probably divine commentary on
the state of Ontario’s efforts to date on dealing with the corona virus. It does appear that Ontario has stalled when
it comes to reducing the daily number of new cases and after last week’s large
gatherings at Trinity-Bellwoods Park and now the demonstrations in Toronto over
the weekend, there will likely be another spike in cases about two weeks down
the road. Toronto has already been responsible
for a disproportionate number of new cases in Ontario and this will likely get
worse.
Of the 3,409 cases added to the Ontario
total between May 16 and May 23, the Toronto Public Health Unit area added 1,955
of them – nearly 60 percent of the total.
The population of this area in 2016 was 2.7 million out of 13.5 million
for Ontario as a whole – a 20 percent share.
So, it appears that COVID-19 in Toronto is occurring at about three
times the provincial rate and it does not look like it is going to improve
anytime soon.
The crux of
the matter is illustrated in Figure 1 which shows the number of daily new
COVID-19 cases from January 25th to June 1st with a 0.5
bandwidth LOWESS smooth. The results do
not require a degree in statistics or epidemiology to interpret. We appear to have a reached a daily plateau
in terms of the number of new cases. In
terms of the growth rate of total cases, we have not cracked the 1 percent
daily growth rate barrier. Indeed, the
best we ever did was May 26th and 27th when we got down
to 1.1 percent, but the growth rate has inched up since and today was 1.5
percent. By way of comparison, Italy is now down to a 0.1 percent growth rate
in total cases.
And speaking of Italy,
here is another interesting comparison.
In Figure 2, Ontario and Italy daily cases are plotted since January 25th
and guess what – despite having about 4 times our population and one of the worst outbreaks of Covid-19 in the world, Italy is now at about
the same number of daily new cases as Ontario.
So, we do
have a problem and the problem is Ontario’s disjointed attempts at dealing with
the pandemic. Like much of the country,
we moved slowly at the outset in dealing with the pandemic and this still seems
to be the hallmark of the Ontario response. Case in point. Pearson airport today announced new
strict health measures for dealing with COVID-19-effective June 1st
including the compulsory
wearing of face masks everywhere in the terminal. Interestingly, these were not announced April
1st or even May 1st but June 1st. Seriously?
Airports are under federal jurisdiction, why so long in finally announcing
and implementing these types of measures?
The federal government is probably too busy rushing funding to one group
after another – today it was $2.2 billion for municipalities - as a sort of
fiscal atonement for the sin of not being ready for the pandemic and then reacting
too slowly when it began.
I think a glimmer
of hope is from the news
reported in Italy that Dr. Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San
Raffaele hospital in Milan apparently has claimed that ““the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy”, provoking a furore in
Italy. “The swabs performed over the past 10 days have showed a viral load that
is absolutely infinitesimal in quantitative terms compared to those carried out
a month or two months ago.” Essentially,
the virus has begun to mutate and has become less lethal. As for Dr. Zangrillo – he looks like a pretty
solid researcher type to me given his
Google Scholar page. Of course, this
has been challenged by health experts and I certainly would not rush out into
the street to demonstrate in public celebration. Nevertheless, Italy has been
ahead of the curve with respect to the severity of the illness and if this is
true, then it is a glimmer of hope. We could use a lucky break from the lack of
initial awareness and plodding approaches of both the Ontario and Federal governments.
