Vaccinating ‘hot spots’ good, closing golf courses dumb
Quick review of Ontario’s latest lockdown plan
Ontario, the epicentre of Canada’s third wave of COVID-19, is currently subject to what Premier Doug Ford has called the “strictest measures in all of North America.”
On Tuesday, Ontario’s official COVID-19 Science Advisory Table issued an oblique criticism of the current lockdowns. In a statement, the team of more than three dozen public health researchers branded some of Ontario’s current restrictions as belonging to policies that “won’t work.” They are far from the first in Ontario to question the efficacy of measures that are unprecedented in Canada, including empowering police to ticket anyone outside their home without valid reason.
Below, a quick review of what, according to the best available COVID-19 evidence, Ontario is doing right and wrong in addressing its third wave.
CLOSING OUTDOOR RECREATION MAKES (BASICALLY) NO SENSE WHATSOEVER
After one year of global COVID-19, the world’s health researchers are pretty confident in the notion that being outdoors is a great way to avoid coronavirus. One meta-review of COVID-19 research has found that fewer than 10 per cent of infections occur outdoors, and that one’s odds of getting the virus are 19 times higher when indoors rather than outdoors.
While Premier Doug Ford has backtracked on an initial plan to close playgrounds, everything from hiking trails to golf courses to skate parks has been ordered shuttered. On Sunday, video even emerged of an alleged physical altercation between an OPP officer and a 12-yearold boy who had been violating provincial orders by using his local skate park.
The Science Advisory Table has specifically criticized outdoor closures as being ineffective policies that disproportionately harm “children and those who do not have access to their own greenspace.” This view was echoed by Mississauga infectious diseases physician Sumon Chakrabarti, who told CP24, “right now unfortunately, apart from vaccination and, you know, some stuff in workplaces, there’s not a lot of levers left to pull.”
ONTARIO’S BEEN GOOD AT EXPANDING HOSPITAL CAPACITY
Keeping hospitals ready for surges of new patients has been a feature throughout the pandemic, but it’s particularly critical in the third wave. In Canada, COVID-19 is now a significantly less deadly disease: With most seniors having received at least one shot of vaccine, the COVID-19 death rate has remained relatively stable since March, despite the rise in cases.
At the same time, the arrival of more powerful variants has spiked the number of younger people getting seriously ill, which means that Ontario’s hospitalization rate from COVID-19 is at all-time highs. In this, one of the least visible Ontario measures to respond to the third wave is also one of its most effective. Last week, Ontario issued emergency orders to clear hospital beds by ramping down elective surgeries and streamlining the means patients could be transferred to make way for COVID-19 patients. This is in addition to the establishment of a field hospital at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and new measures to allow adult admissions to Ontario children’s hospitals.
RETAIL CLOSURES ARE HOPELESSLY ARBITRARY
While it’s possible to catch
COVID-19 from infected surfaces, major health agencies such as the WHO and the Centres for Disease Control are mostly worried about direct droplet transmission: Basically, someone with COVID-19 spews a tiny bit of spittle, and said spittle hits you in the mouth or the eye.
Gyms and bars are among the most well-identified candidates for this kind of transmission, which explains their mandatory closure in Ontario. Grocery stores less so, although one admittedly small-sampled study out of Boston found that grocery store clerks were up to five times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than those in the broader community.
But where Ontario’s new measures get weird is in how they force smaller retailers to rope off certain kinds of merchandise while continuing to sell others. Ontario
Dollaramas, for instance, are allowed to sell groceries while school and baby supplies are banned. The policy is ostensibly designed to decrease the “mobility” of Ontarians (rising rates of which were identified by the province as being a troubling sign). The ultimate effect is that Ontarians are still shopping, but they’re carrying home fewer items for their troubles.
BLITZING VULNERABLE AREAS WITH VACCINE SHOTS IS GOOD
Ontario is in the unique situation of getting its third wave just in time for the arrival of truckloads of long-delayed vaccine shots. With most of the province’s seniors and other vulnerable communities are already at some level of vaccination, the best strategy now is simply to get out as many shots as possible to limit the ability of COVID-19 — and its new variants — to surge through communities.
Although Ontario’s adoption of a four-month gap between vaccine doses has been controversial, it has maximized the number of people now carrying at least some immunity to the virus. In addition, the province has moved away from a vaccination strategy primarily based on age to one that will also target “hot spot postal codes” that are particularly susceptible to outbreaks.
The best way to avoid a third wave, of course, would be for Ontario to have had generous access to vaccines since January, as has been the case in the U.K. and the United States. But with a supply crunch that is only now starting to lift, this is the best known way to make it as hard as possible for COVID-19 to spread through the population.
THERE’S NOT A LOT OF LEVERS LEFT TO PULL.