Today’s numbers show 722 COVID-19 cases for Ontario and
marks five consecutive days of increases that have practically doubled the case
count from 348. Given a third wave peak
of just under 5,000 daily cases in mid-April at a time when vaccination rates
were quite low, the fourth wave currently underway should be relatively minor
barring any unforeseen variant change.
Given that approximately two-thirds of the total population are fully
vaccinated, that leaves one-third of the population more susceptible to the Delta
variant. To me, a back of the envelope
calculation suggests that this fourth wave should therefore peak at about
one-third of the previous third wave peak which results in about 1,600 daily
cases. However, it might be more given the economy has opened up whereas restrictions were greater during the prior waves. However, it would be surprising to see more than 2,000 cases daily but who knows.
The impact of COVID-19 has affected every corner of Ontario but some parts of the province have been hit harder than others. The typical way of looking at the numbers is by public health unit and Figure 1 presents the total cases per 100,000 population ranked by public health unit as of August 18th, 2021. The numbers range from highs of 7,310 per 100,000 for Peel and 5,812 for Toronto to lows of 510 for North Bay-Parry Sound and 350 for Algoma. These are large differences and suggest there are major regional differences in COVID-19 incidence and impacts across the province. Indeed, the health units in northern Ontario appear to be mainly in the bottom half of the rankings.
Another way of looking at the data is regionally, and Figure 2 presents the incidence of COVID-19 per 100,000 population by Ontario economic region while Figure 3 does it for deaths per 100,000. The ranking shows the Toronto/GTA region at the top at 5,482 cases per 100,000 and also at the top for deaths at 89 deaths per 100,000. The next highest regions in terms of incidence are Hamilton-Niagara (3,533 cases per 100,000) followed by Windsor-Sarnia (3,438 cases per 100,000) and then Kitchener-Waterloo-Barrie (2899 cases per 100,000). At the bottom in terms of incidence are Stratford-Bruce (1,317 cases per 100,000), Kingston-Pembroke (1281 cases per 100,000) and the northeast (992 cases per 100,000). This pattern largely replicates itself for deaths per 100,000 also.
These results suggest that more densely populated economic regions in Ontario that are also major border entry points with the USA or have a major international airport appear to have had the highest impact from COVID-19 in terms of either cases or deaths per 100,000. One of course might wonder then if regions with higher incidence of COVID-19 or more deaths also suffered a greater economic impact. Figure 4 ranks these economic regions in terms of the percent gain in employment from June 2020 to June 2021 as well as provides the percent employment loss from February 2020 to June 2020 alongside. The results are interesting in that employment rebounds have been the lowest in some of the economic regions most lightly impacted by COVID-19 – namely, Stratford-Bruce, Kingston-Pembroke and the Northeast. The northeast of course had some separate issues given the layoffs at Laurentian and the Vale strike. Hamilton-Niagara and Kitchener-Waterloo Barrie are about in the middle while Toronto is closer to the bottom third.
There does not appear to be a direct correlation between the severity of COVID-19’s impact in terms of incidence and mortality and the size of the economic impact as measured by either employment loss or rebound. Why? The economic impacts unlike pandemics of the distant past were not in terms of mortality and morbidity hitting the labour force but the direct result of lockdowns and other restrictions that were applied on a one size fits all basis province-wide. One could make the case that based on the impact of the pandemic, the strongest lockdowns and restrictions should probably have been applied in Windsor-Sarnia, Hamilton-Niagara, Kitchener-Waterloo-Barrie and Toronto and Ottawa, while regions such as the Northwest and the Northeast – and to a lesser extent Muskoka-Kawartha, London, Kingston-Pembroke and Stratford-Bruce(given their closer location to more affected areas) could have been less restrictive in terms of restrictions that shut down their economies. Applying differential restrictions over larger regions as opposed to by public health unit areas could have also mitigated some of the fears of regional travel to evade restrictions.
Still, that is something for the political and economic powers that be to mull over.
