Province to ease restrictions under new plan

Experts fear government letting guard down, say metrics are ‘too forgiving’

Pandemic restrictions will ease Saturday in Peel, York and Ottawa and Nov. 14 in Toronto under new guidelines outlining when Ontario’s 34 public health units should tighten or lighten COVID-19 measures.

The news comes same day the province reported a record 1,050 cases of COVID-19, up 102 from the previous day, with another 14 deaths.

The easing of restrictions means indoor dining can resume and gyms and theatres reopen, but with additional protective measures in place, such as no alcohol served after 9 p.m., closing time an hour later and three metres of distance between people exercising, up from two.

“We have to be super, super cautious,” Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday at a new conference with chief medical officer Dr. David Williams.

“By no means does this mean can we let our guard down.”

But observers feared the Progressive Conservative government is doing just that.

“This is a really black day for public health in Ontario,” University of Toronto infection control epidemiologist Colin Furness told the Star.

Furness warned it will be easier for the virus to get further out of control.

“Some of the metrics are just too forgiving,” infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch said of the new thresholds.

Williams acknowledged that “risks remain” and asked Ontarians to be aware of the dangers of transmission as they go about their daily lives.

The detailed framework uses five colour-coded categories from best to worst — or “prevent” to “lockdown” — and puts each health unit into one of them as local data warrants in Ford’s effort to strike a “happy balance” between keeping people safe and businesses open.

Liberals and the NDP called the new system “convoluted” and “complex.”

Ontario’s seven-day average of new daily infections has jumped to 951 from 672 on Oct. 9, when Ford imposed restrictions on Toronto, Peel and Ottawa in time for the Thanksgiving weekend. That’s an increase of 41 per cent.

The new plan features guidelines in each category for segments of the economy, from restaurants to retail, theatres, gyms, meeting halls, and forecasts lab testing of100,000 nasal swabs daily by December, roughly double the current capacity.

“People want certainty,” said Ford, who called the plan an “early warning system” that will help keep better track of when a health unit is heading into deeper trouble with the highly contagious virus.

To avoid daily fluctuations in statistics, the five categories use local criteria over the previous week on the number of cases per 100,000 population; the percentage of people tested who are positive; the viral reproduction rate; outbreak levels; hospital and intensive care capacity; and timely contact-tracing.

For example, to be at the lowest level of restrictions a health unit must have fewer than 10 cases per100,000 and a positivity rate below one per cent, (which means no more than one in 100 people tested are positive).

Twenty-five of Ontario’s health units are in that category, including London, Kingston and Windsor.

Next up the scale is yellow or “protect,” with fewer than 40 cases per100,000 and a positivity rate below 2.5 per cent, followed by orange or “restrict” with fewer than 100 cases per 100,000 and a positivity rate below 10 per cent.

Ford proposed that Hamilton, Durham, Halton and Brant County go into yellow with restrictions only in high-risk settings. Toronto, Peel, York, Ottawa and Eastern Ontario will be moved into orange with some public health measures remaining, but avoiding closures as much as possible.

Broader-scale measures, such as the ban on indoor dining and shuttering of gyms, theatres, bingo halls and casinos would not happen until the fourth or red category known as “control,” similar to the modified Stage 2 the four hot zones are now in, is reached.

To be in that category, there must be more than 100 cases per100,000 residents and a positivity rate of at least10 per cent.

Ontario officials said the status of all health units will be reviewed and updated based on the latest data on Friday.