Niagara trending in right direction; no new cases reported Monday CNN uses local slogan to praise Canada’s COVID-19 efforts
When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the Niagara region in March, Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati predicted a local slogan could become a global hit.
Now, international media is using the Crush the Curve moniker to describe how Canada is handling the health crisis compared to the United States.
The Crush the Curve awareness campaign launched in Niagara Falls four months ago, but not without controversy, as some initially criticized it for including the sale of merchandise.
But Diodati maintained the campaign was well intentioned and meant to combat the pandemic using a catchier phrase than Flatten the Curve, which was being used by medical professionals and other politicians.
On Friday, the mayor took note when American broadcaster CNN used Crush the Curve in various headlines to explain how Canada is doing a better job than the United States in limiting the spread of the potentially deadly virus. CNN, which is broadcast around the world, used variations of the term in headlines — “Canada crushing the curve as U.S. cases soar” and “How Canada crushed the curve,” for example — both on live TV and in online news articles.
“It was always intended to be a marketing slogan,” said Diodati.
“We’ve been really active on social media. We’ve been tweeting it out. We never reached out to any specific media, but I’ve done interviews with all major (national and international) media … and I bring it up in every conversation since this started.”
Diodati credited a group of Brock University interns for coming up with the idea, and a local merchandising distribution company for supporting the concept.
“We stayed the course and it would have been easy to turtle, but we knew it was a very good campaign. It instantly communicated the message.”
Meanwhile, Niagara Region Public Health reported no new cases of COVID-19 Monday.
Of the 764 cases to date, 676 have been resolved and 61 pa
tients have died while infected with COVID-19, although that does not mean the virus was the cause of death.
There are 27 active cases of the virus in Niagara.
The region has one outbreak of the virus — at Garden City Manor in St. Catharines.
Dr. Mustafa Hirji, Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, said outbreaks at Crescent Park Lodge in Fort Erie and at Pioneer
Flower Farms in St. Catharines were declared over on the weekend.
He said while the statistics are “certainly looking pretty good right now … that can change in a single day.”
“We’ve been going a good stretch of time where we have been averaging about two cases per day, and it’s slightly trended down.”
Still of concern, however, is that Niagara is reporting cases where medical officials are unsure where the source of infection is coming from, said Hirji.
“That implies to us that there are likely unidentified cases out there who are spreading the small amount of illness we’re still seeing, so we can’t get complacent now.”
He said it remains important people keep their two-metre distance from others as much as possible, continue to practise proper hand hygiene, and wear face coverings when physically distancing is not possible.
Hirji said people should continue to pay close attention to their health and if they have any mild symptoms of the virus, get tested.
“We’re in Stage 2 of our reopening. There is a Stage 3 that comes after that and then there is a new normal that is going to be where we are beyond that, so we obviously don’t want to be putting ourselves in the place where we can’t move on to Stage 3 or even start to have to back track back into Stage 1, so another reason why it’s really important we keep everything up.”
Ray Spiteri is a St. Catharines-based reporter for the Niagara Falls Review. raymond.spiteri@niagaradailies.com