Ontario’s “404 Error”: Is This As Good As COVID Is Going to Get?

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 25^th to June 1^st 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 26^th and 27^th 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 25^th 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 1^st including the compulsory wearing of face masks everywhere in the terminal.   Interestingly, these were not announced April 1^st or even May 1^st but June 1^st.  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.