Medical officers of health want COVID-19 voice
More flexibility between regions needed, says Hirji
Ontario’s medical officers of health, including Niagara’s Dr. Mustafa Hirji, say one-size-fitsall is not the best approach for managing the novel coronavirus pandemic and are seeking more influence and a voice at the provincial planning table.
“Right now, the 34 medical officers of health do not have a voice in that black box of government decision-making,” Hirji said Thursday, a day after the Toronto Star broke the story about all Ontario medical officers of health drafting guidelines they want to use to manage the pandemic, and the economic reopening, on a region-by-region basis.
Hirji said while local public health units have the responsibility to manage the pandemic on a local level, they have no direct voice at the provincial strategy table where policy is set on everything from testing to how to reawaken a slumbering economy.
Those policies have treated Ontario as a homogenous block, which Hirji says might not be the best way to move forward.
“Different communities are in different situations,” he said. “The GTA still has a pretty consistent number of new cases each day, but in other communities, like those in the north or here in Niagara, we have seen a decline and we are doing pretty well.”
The guidelines drafted include specific, data-based indicators that measure four categories — virus spread and containment, health care capacity, public health capacity, and contract tracing capacity.
They could be used in deciding whether more of the economy can safely reopen, if the status quo needs to be maintained, or if more restrictive measures should be reintroduced. The proposal stands in contrast with the current provincial plan, which is less reliant on data indicators.
“We are trying to strike a balance between containing the spread and economic impacts,” said Hirji. “If there are some areas that are able to open up more, why should the economic suffering be the same everywhere?”
Hirji, who said the proposal will appear on Niagara’s public
health website soon, noted other countries, including Japan, are taking a similar approach to reopening.
In Japan, regions where the spread of the virus is contained have opened up more than in Tokyo, which remains in a lockdown mode.
However, he said, the proposal — which is being presented to the province by the chair of the council of Ontario medical officers of health — is not written in stone, and important practical details are still to be hammered out.
For instance, he said, if a region like Niagara can open up more than Toronto because of lower rates of infection, what is to stop Toronto residents from coming to Niagara and potentially creating a greater risk of COVID-19 spread here?
Hirji said he believes there are ways to manage those issues, and a key component of the proposal is to use data to adapt as infection rates change.
However, for the plan to work medical officers of health need to have authority to make some key decisions locally. That can only happen if the provincial government allows it, Hirji said.
If the plan is adopted by the province, Niagara could be in a position to relax some restrictions. On Thursday, just one new COVID-19 case was confirmed, and it was linked to a previous infection.
That single case, which followed Wednesday’s zero new case count, brings the historical total to 635, with 46 cases remaining active. At least 59 Niagara residents with COVID-19 have died during the pandemic.
The low case count comes as testing for COVID-19 has expanded in the past four days. Derek McNally, Niagara
“Right now, the 34 medical officers of health do not have a voice in that black box of government decision-making.”
DR. MUSTAFA HIRJI
NIAGARA MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
Health vice president of clinical services, said Thursday that since Premier Doug Ford announced anyone who wants a COVID-19 test can get one without a referral from a doctor or public health, demand for testing locally has shot up.
Prior to Ford’s announcement, the hospital system — which does the bulk of COVID-19 testing in Niagara, at the St. Catharines and Niagara Falls hospitals — was doing about 130 tests a day, McNally said.
Last Friday, he said, the number of people being tested had dropped so low that only the St. Catharines testing site was running for the day.
Since Ford’s announcement, the number has more than doubled. On Monday, Niagara Health tested 198 people, on Tuesday 242 and on Wednesday 285 were tested.
In total, Niagara Health has tested more than 12,000 people. The total number of tests done in Niagara is not known, however, because tests conducted in clinics or by family doctors are not reported to public health; only positive test results are.
The increased testing has not yielded more cases. No positive results for COVID-19 have been reported by Niagara Health in the past three days. Hirji said it is a positive sign if increased testing is not finding more COVID-19 cases, and is further evidence of the limited spread of the virus locally.
However, he cautioned that test results on people who were enjoying the warm weather over the past week are still to be reported and could yield a batch of new cases. Hirji said although the number of new cases is low, it is still important that Niagara residents practice physical distancing, hand hygiene and wear masks.