Thanksgiving socializing affected Ontario’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19
Not too soon to think about precautions for Christmas , expert says
Health officials in Ontario and Manitoba are pointing to the recent Thanksgiving celebrations as they continue to see high numbers of new COVID -19 infections despite strengthening restrictions in hot spot areas.
In Ontario, where new cases reached a peak over the weekend, Health Minister Christine Elliott said the holiday took place around the same time as the province imposed stricter health measures in three regions, including Toronto. The tighter rules were applied to a fourth region more than a week later.
While the number of new daily infections is starting to decrease in some areas, such as Ottawa, in the other regions “we’re not seeing that happen quite as quickly as we’d like to,” Elliott said.
“We’re also seeing some of the impacts from Thanksgiving several weeks ago, so we’ve got that adding to the increase in community transmission, but we are also starting to see some of the numbers in some of the modified areas,” she said.
Elliott’s comments came a day after Ontario — one of the two provinces hit hardest by the pandemic — recorded 1,000 new cases, its highest single-day increase since the start of the global health crisis. The number of new infections dropped to 851 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, a level comparable to last week.
Toronto’s medical officer of health, Eileen de Villa, said the current case counts reflect infections that were acquired about two weeks ago so it’s likely Thanksgiving played a role, but it’s not possible to say how significant an impact it had. “Certainly the timing lines up appropriately,” she said Monday.
Meanwhile, Manitoba’s top doctor said many of the100 new cases reported by the province were linked to Thanksgiving.
Isaac Bogoch, infectious disease specialist at the University of Toronto said health officials should begin to prepare the public for Christmas — a holiday that involves even more gatherings and travel than Thanksgiving, he said.
“No one wants to say publicly that it’s unlikely that the numbers will be down in many of the hot spots in Canada in a sufficient enough way to say it’s OK to get together for Christmas,” he said.