Premiers get ready to ‘reopen’ economies
SMALLER PROVINCES PREPARE TO UNVEIL PLANS EVEN AS CASES MOUNT IN ONTARIO, QUEBEC
With some provinces now seemingly past the peak of COVID-19 and looking cautiously toward a light at the end of the tunnel — knowing the risk of a second outbreak lurks — some premiers are now expressing hope they can lift certain restrictions and partially reopen their economies soon.
Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister said he’s aiming for his province to be the first to reopen. He’s even coined an acronym for it: “First In restoring safe services together,” or FIRST.
“That FIRST acronym is what’s in my mind every day,” Pallister said on Tuesday. “Together, we’re going to beat this thing.”
The province is currently seeing very little spread of the virus, reporting just one new case of COVID-19 on Tuesday. Pallister has said the province is now looking to early May for early steps to reopen some parts of the economy, but said that to get there, people will still have to stay vigilant in keeping their distance.
In Saskatchewan, which reported four new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, Premier Scott Moe is scheduled to deliver a televised address to the province Wednesday evening with updates on the COVID-19 pandemic situation, in advance of his government releasing its “reopen Saskatchewan plan,” scheduled to be made public Thursday.
In Ontario, however, Premier Doug Ford urged people to stay the course as his province continues to face a more challenging public health scenario, with 551 new cases of COVID-19 reported on Tuesday.
“There’s no one out there that wants to move forward on the economy more than I do, but we would rather be safe than sorry,” Ford said Tuesday. “I’m getting lobbied hard by so many different groups and organizations. But it’s easy to say ‘open, open, open’ until we get a second wave of this and it bites us in the backside. I just beg people to be patient.”
Nationally, the vast majority of daily increases in Canada’s COVID-19 cases and deaths are due to Ontario and Quebec, and to a lesser extent Alberta, B.C. and Nova Scotia.
But the pandemic has tapered off in the other provinces, at least for now, and premiers in those provinces are looking at the next few weeks as a possibility for starting to gradually reopen some parts of the economy.
Manitoba’s strategy for reopening still requires a further increase in testing capacity and the protection of vulnerable centres such as nursing homes. It now mandates 14 days of self-isolation for anyone returning from outside the province.
“We know we can’t have the measures as stringent as they are right now. We can’t maintain this for long periods of time,” Manitoba’s chief public health officer, Brent Roussin, said Tuesday.
“Certainly we realize that there’s more to health than just this virus. The impact of these public health orders are affecting Manitobans so we want to leave them in for the shortest period of time that we need,” Roussin said.
Pallister spoke earlier this week of being in a marathon, saying the Manitoba was in “the lead.” New Brunswick is also in front of other provinces, having reported zero new COVID-19 cases for three days in a row, and seven of the past 10 days. New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has said he’s optimistic about reopening in May, but it depends how the next week or two go.
“We are not through with this virus,” cautioned Jennifer Russell, New Brunswick’s chief medical officer, on Tuesday. She said the province will be prepared for a “cyclical” process where restrictions may have to be reimposed quickly if things turn bad. “We are going to be doing a dance, basically,” she said.
Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island both reported zero new cases on Tuesday, although Nova Scotia is still seeing daily case counts in the double digits.
In the larger provinces, a few areas of outbreak are hampering efforts to get the pandemic under control. In Ontario and Quebec, there are still widespread outbreaks in nursing homes and jails. In Alberta, a large outbreak at a meat-packing plant in the south is connected to 15 per cent of the province’s cases, and officials are also working to contain an outbreak at an oilsands work camp in the north.
Although there has been slower spread of the virus among the general population — especially compared to what initial modelling had predicted — Ontario officials said their data shows it is still spreading in the community, accounting for roughly 400 of the new daily cases, and the curve has not yet begun to curve downward.
Even so, Ontario’s chief medical officer David Williams said Tuesday that he doesn’t believe the province will need to wait until daily cases reach zero before the provinces starts to lift certain restrictions. Instead, he said, the number needs to get low enough so officials are confident that community spread has slowed substantially and they can do full contact-tracing on the new cases.
“I’m not sure there’s any metric where it would be, when you hit this you can flip the switch,” Williams said. “When we’re dealing with daily numbers well over 500, we’re not there yet.” He said that once numbers drop into the 200s or lower, the province may able to start reopening.
B.C. may offer a way forward for Ontario and Quebec. The western province saw an early outbreak but has now seen new cases slow to about two dozen daily.
Bonnie Henry, B.C.’S medical officer, said officials are planning to produce new modelling for infection and hospitalization rates in early May along with proposals for starting to lift restrictions.
Henry said she believes many businesses can find ways to reopen over the coming months, including shops and restaurants, but it will require coming up with creative ways to reduce social interactions.
“I think there’s lots of innovative ways that we can have in-restaurant dining that protects both the staff as well as people who are coming in,” she said. “And I’m looking to industry to come up with those ideas for how this could work.”