Ontario COVID-19 rates showing improvement
It’s too soon to say if it’s a trend, says associate medical officer of health; case rates are still high
Ontario’s COVID-19 numbers are showing improvement, but it’s too soon to say if that’s the start of a downward trend, one of the province’s top doctors said Thursday.
Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate medical officer of health, said the provincial case rate has started to decline for the first time since November — sitting now at 145.4 cases per 100,000 people — although that figure is still high.
The average per cent positivity rate on COVID-19 tests has also dropped – down to 5.3 per cent from 6.3 per cent last week – and 26 of the province’s 34 public health units have seen case rates decline, the government said.
“We’re seeing some improvement,” Yaffe said. “But we do need to see more data to determine if those decreasing rates are a real trend.”
The positive numbers come a week after Premier Doug Ford’s government imposed a state of emergency and issued a stay-athome order to bring soaring rates of COVID under control.
Schools throughout much of southern Ontario remain closed for in-person learning because of high community transmission and the government has not provided a timeline for a return to class.
Yaffe warned that there are still 1,533 people in hospital with COVID-19 across the province and 388 in intensive care units.
The province is also reporting 15 cases of the so-called U.K. variant of the COVID-19 virus,.
Meanwhile, Ford continued to express frustration at COVID-19 vaccine delivery delays from Pfizer amid a production slowdown at the company. “It’s absolutely critical that Pfizer steps up to the plate and not leaves us behind the eight ball, which they have,” he said Thursday.
Canada was to get more than 417,000 doses of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine this week and next, but will now get just 171,093 doses this week and nothing the next week.