Province hits the ‘emergency brake’

Districts in lockdown after ‘rapid worsening’

Simcoe-Muskoka and

Thunder Bay district going back into lockdown,

Ontario is using its “emergency brake” to move health units in Simcoe-Muskoka and the Thunder Bay district back into lockdown starting Monday because of a “rapid worsening” in COVID-19 indicators.

The change announced Friday by chief medical officer Dr. David Williams means an end to indoor restaurant dining, personal-care services like barber shops, nail and hair salons and the closure of gyms, although non-essential businesses will be able to stay open at 25 per cent customer capacity.

Williams said Simcoe-Muskoka, which includes Barrie and Orillia, has the highest proportion of new and more contagious variants of the virus in the province while Thunder Bay is struggling with outbreaks that pushed weekly cases per 100,000 up 54 per cent in the last two weeks.

“It was necessary to tighten public health measures in these regions to ensure the health and safety of the region at large and stop the spread of the virus,” he said.

Simcoe-Muskoka medical officer Dr. Charles Gardner said the B.1.1.7 strain is likely behind a 30 per cent in cases in the last week after a period of steady decline.

“I am quite concerned,” he told CP24.

Both regions had been in the red zone of public health measures, one below lockdown, since Premier Doug Ford lifted stay-at-home orders in most of the province earlier this month.

Toronto, Peel Region and North Bay-Parry Sound remain under stay-at-home orders for at least one more week while Niagara Region will move from lockdown to lesser restrictions in the red category of the province’s five-tier, colour coded framework of public health measures with cases per 100,000 down 31 per cent in the last two weeks.

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said Friday that Peel should be moved to the red zone with the nearby regions of York and Halton, although there is some resistance to that among health experts.

“Hospital capacity is better than it’s been,” Brown said. “Case counts are dramatically down.”

Ministry of Health statistics show Peel has 87 weekly cases per 100,000, a decline of two per cent in the past two weeks. The case level is higher than Toronto’s at 74, where medical officer Dr. Eileen DeVilla warned this week that COVID-19 is spreading faster after a sustained decline.

While cases are declining in many of the province’s 34 regional health units, at least 24 have variants present and Ontario’s seven-day moving average of cases has been on the rise for a week. Another 1,258 confirmed infections Friday boosted the average to 1,114 from just over 1,000 a week ago.

The government reported 28 more cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, raising the total to 477, and three more of the B.1.351, raising that tally to 14. There are two cases of the P.1 variant.

Several other health units will move to lower restrictions, allowing movie theatres to open and more patrons in restaurants, bars and gyms, because of declining case counts.

Middlesex-London, Chatham-Kent and the Southwestern Public Health unit serving St. Thomas and environs are going from the red zone down to the orange level.

The Ministry of Health warned about counterfeit N95 masks purportedly from 3M and asked hospitals and nursing homes to keep watch for them while officials doublecheck the provincial inventory.