How COVID-19’s latest wave will hit the economy

OTTAWA — When Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered the closure last Friday of restaurants, fitness centres, cinemas and performing arts until at least Nov. 6, he understood the consequences.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, employees in these sectors had already suffered disproportionately. In the national capital region, the first COVID-19 lockdown stripped employment in hotels & restaurants by more than half. With the gradual re-opening of the economy employers started rehiring. But as of September, employment in hospitality-heavy sectors was 25 per cent below where it was in February — compared with a net decline of just five per cent for the rest of the local economy.

Retailers, with the exception of big box stores such as Costco and Walmart, have also been forced to make substantial trims to staff levels. These remain nearly 10 per cent below where they were in February. And that doesn’t begin to cover the economic pain because so many of these employees are working fewer hours.

Restaurants and retailers comprise thousands of small businesses that are the bedrock of Ford’s political base. The premier had vowed earlier in the week not to shut down people’s livelihoods unless he was presented with solid evidence that such a move was necessary.

Such evidence apparently arrived in the form of “alarming public health trends that require immediate attention”, to use Ford’s words.To some extent this was inevitable: COVID-19 has been spreading rapidly, especially here and in Peel and Toronto. Across the province, the number of confirmed cases over the past week or so has averaged 700 per day — roughly 25 per cent higher than during the peak of the pandemic last April. Over the same period, the tally of active cases in the province climbed seven per cent to 5,540.

Even so, Ontario’s health officials had been somewhat reassured by the fact the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in hospital had actually tumbled 76 per cent to about 200 in early October.

So where’s the alarming trend? Almost certainly, part of it has to do with an accelerating “positivity” rate. While some of the rise in new confirmed cases of COVID-19 is the result of sharply increased testing, the city’s health authorities have been disturbed by the steep climb in the percentage of positive tests.

The ratio during the week ended Oct. 4 was 2.6 per cent. That was well short of the situation last April, when more than 15 per cent of COVID-19 tests were positive — in large part because tests were being allocated for obviously sick people.

Nevertheless, it’s still a marked deterioration from last July, when typically fewer than 0.5 per cent tested positive.

The percentage of positive tests has been rising rapidly in Ottawa since Labour Day — and health officials were keen to avoid another holidayinspired acceleration.

The other trend being watched carefully by Ottawa Public Health is the rate of infection in the community, otherwise known as R (t) — which measures how many times a single infected individual will forward the pathogen.