Hospitals under pressure as Ontario shows 'fragile' flattening of COVID-19 cases
Province also announces testing for asymptomatic students and staff to begin at hot spot schools
TORONTO — Ontario’s hospitals face increasing strain due to the COVID-19 pandemic even as the province sees tentative improvements in case counts, health officials suggested Thursday in releasing new data on the state of the second wave.
The rate of infection and the number of new daily cases appear to be flattening but it’s too soon to tell whether the province has turned a corner, health officials said, noting things could quickly take another turn for the worse.
“While it’s positive to see these indicators like cases are starting to flatten, it is best described as a fragile or precarious situation where we need to make sure that cases continue to flatten and decline before we can say that we’re making strong progress,” said Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, one of the experts behind the report.
In the meantime, the number of hospitalizations related to the novel coronavirus rose more than 63 per cent over the last four weeks, and the number of patients in intensive care units recently passed the threshold where surgeries may need to be cancelled, the new data show.
The report released Thursday shows more than 150 intensive care beds are currently filled, with that number likely to hit 200 next month and remain there for some time.
Deaths in long-term care homes are also rising, with 64 reported in the last seven days, even though the number of cases among staff and residents appears to be flattening, the document shows.
Many new cases in hot spot regions cannot be traced to a specific source, a metric Brown called a “critical measure of public health capacity.”
The report shows 70 per cent of new cases in Toronto, and 27 per cent of cases in Peel Region and Ottawa, cannot be linked to a source, while 20 per cent of York Region’s new daily infections have no known epidemiological link.
Thursday marked the first time new projections have been released since the province sent Toronto and Peel into lockdown earlier this week.
The Ontario government also announced it is starting voluntary COVID-19 testing for asymptomatic students, faculty and staff in regions with high rates of transmission.
The expanded testing will be provided for four weeks in schools in Toronto, Peel and York regions, and Ottawa. Those who show symptoms or have been exposed to a COVID-19 case should continue to stay home and get tested at an assessment centre.