`DARK DAYS AHEAD'
Stay-at-home order effective Thursday will severely limit outings for Ontarians
Ontario is invoking a new state of emergency declaration and stayat-home order in the hopes of cutting down the spread of COVID-19 and averting catastrophe in hospitals, as advisers warn that mobility and contacts between people have not declined under the current pandemic restriction regime.
Under the stay-at-home order, effective Thursday, Ontarians will be allowed to leave home only for “select reasons,” according to the Office of the Solicitor General, such as getting groceries or medication, going to a health-care appointment, exercising outside, supporting a vulnerable family member, or going to work, if their job requires them to be onsite and they can't work remotely.
The province said that all businesses must ensure that any employee who can work from home, does so, and that additional public health measures will be enacted: reducing outdoor gathering limits from 10 people to five, requiring non-essential retail stores such as hardware and liquor stores and those offering curbside pickup to open only between 7 a.m.
Asked Tuesday if a backyard gathering of fewer than five people would be permitted under the stay-at-home order, the ministry said it would not be. Collecting a curbside pickup order at a nonessential business, however, would be allowed.
The Citizen was unable to get clarity before press time Tuesday on all of the reasons for which people would be permitted to leave home, and under what circumstances outdoor gatherings of up to five people will be permitted.
“Folks, there will be some really dark days ahead, some turbulent waters, but we will get through this,” Ford said. “Now, more than ever, we need, I need you to do your part. Stay home, save lives, protect our health-care system.”
Schools in Windsor-Essex, Peel, Toronto, York and Hamilton will remain closed until Feb. 10. By Jan. 20, the chief medical officer of health will provide recommendations for the remaining regions, Ford said.
Childcare centres for nonschool-aged children will remain open, and emergency childcare will continue for eligible families in regions where in-person learning is suspended for elementary students.
The premier differentiated between a curfew and a stay-at-home order at his Tuesday news conference, explaining that under a curfew “you aren't leaving your house, simple as that.”
“The last thing I've ever believed in, ever, is having a curfew that when you pull out of your driveway after eight o'clock, the police are chasing you down the street. I just do not believe in that,” he said.
The emergency declaration, Ontario's second of the pandemic, allows the government to make new emergency orders under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.
The province is giving the OPP, local police, bylaw officers, and provincial workplace inspectors the power to ticket people who don't comply with the stay-athome order. They'll also be able to break up gatherings and temporarily close a premises.
“The measures we are introducing today are absolutely necessary to save and protect the lives of Ontarians. This is not the first wave. Now community transmission is widespread. It's in our hospitals, it's in our long-term care homes, and it's in our workplaces,” said Health Minister Christine Elliott.
Elliott said the province will provide 300,000 rapid COVID-19 tests per week to support key sectors, such as manufacturing, warehousing, supply chain and food processing, as well as schools and longterm care homes, to help identify and isolate COVID-19 cases.
Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath criticized the provincial government's “lack of new measures” in response to grim pandemic modelling made public earlier in the day.
“Hospitals are in the process of being overwhelmed, and longterm care homes are in the grips of a deadly crisis. Thousands more people are getting sick every single day. The half-measures and loopholes must stop,” Horwath said in a prepared statement.
Earlier in the day, new forecasting was released suggesting that more long-term care residents will die in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario than were lost in the first, deadly wave of infections last year.
The presentation put together by health, science and modelling experts also revealed it's quite possible that more than 1,000 ICU beds — about half of the province's capacity — become occupied by COVID-19 patients in February, and that new cases reported every 24 hours surpass 20,000.
Already, more than half of all ICU units in Ontario are full or have only one or two beds left, said Dr. Steini Brown, co-chair of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table. Provincial reporting Tuesday put COVID-19 patient ICU occupancy at 385.
As this number climbs towards 1,000, “we will have to confront choices that no doctor ever wants to make and no family ever wants to hear,” said Brown, before delivering Tuesday's modelling presentation. “There will be choices about who will get the care they need, and who will not. There will be choices about who receives oxygen or is transported to hospital.”
By the end of the first week in February, even under a “very optimistic” scenario of one per cent growth, more than 700 ICU beds would be filled with COVID-19 patients, Brown said. In a “more reasonable range” of case growth, between three and five per cent, Ontario will be looking at 1,000 to 1,500 beds occupied.
If current trends persist, daily COVID-19 deaths could double from 50 to 100 by the end of February. This would put COVID-19 in competition for being the single greatest cause of mortality on a daily basis, said Brown, potentially surpassing cancer and heart disease
Tuesday's presentation also revealed that mobility and contacts between people have not decreased under Ontario's current pandemic restrictions.
And then, there's the new, more infectious variant of COVID-19 first identified in the U.K. The province reported eight new cases of the variant Tuesday, more than doubling the number of such infections identified in Ontario.
The previous six were among recent travellers to the U.K. or travellers' close contacts. Of the new cases, no evidence of travel has been identified yet in three of them, according to associate chief medical officer of health Dr. Barbara Yaffe.
“If that's confirmed, we have evidence then of community transmission. And that is a very serious concern,” Yaffe said.