‘Steering in uncertain waters’ in tackling second wave of virus

The complexities of the current wave of COVID-19 are spurring regions with rising cases to adopt different measures as they seek to turn the tide of the pandemic, Canada’s top public health officer said Monday.

Dr. Theresa Tam said public health officials in each area are trying to target their response to local epidemiology and circumstances, but are “steering in uncertain waters.”

“No one knows exactly what is going to work, so there’s a grey zone,” she said, adding Canadians should nonetheless know to stick with basic strategies such as handwashing, physical distancing and wearing masks.

Public co-operation was key to tackling the initial wave of the novel coronavirus and “we need to see that again,” she said.

Tam’s comments came as Quebec announced more stringent rules when it comes to maskwearing for students in hard-hit areas, and days after Toronto announced it would scale back contact tracing due to an unsustainable case load.

Quebec says it is making mask-wearing mandatory inside high schools in regions at the highest COVID-19 alert level as well as outside on school grounds, at least until Oct. 28. The affected regions include the Montreal and Quebec City areas.

Ontario only requires students to wear masks indoors.

But Ontario is facing a backlog of more than 60,000 tests for processing.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said federal laboratories have freed up space for surge support on test processing. More federal labs will be made available, he said Monday.

Ottawa is also providing contact tracers to Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, he said. Five hundreds full-time contact tracers have been supplied to Ontario.

New COVID-19 case numbers continue to surge in several parts of the country, particularly in Quebec and Ontario, which account for more than 80 per cent of the country’s total cases.

Quebec reported 1,191 new COVID-19 cases Monday, while Ontario reported 615 new cases and five deaths. —