Learn to live with it, de Villa says

Toronto is moving from trying to eradicate COVID-19 to learning to live with the virus while minimizing its negative impacts — just as we do every year with influenza, said public health chief Dr. Eileen de Villa.

She told reporters at a Friday briefing that public health officials around the world are concluding that, given how many people are being infected with the Omicron variant, a “COVID zero strategy” no longer makes sense.

“People are talking about eventually getting to a point where COVID is more endemic — it’s part and parcel of our background.

“You may see some flare-ups over time,” that will strain the health system and kill some people, she said.

That suffering will be minimized with vaccinations, masking, distancing and ventilation, de Villa said, adding that “learning to live with COVID can be seen as akin to something along the lines of how we manage influenza on a yearly basis.

“It might not be exactly like that, but it might be something that people can relate to.”

What happens to remaining pandemic restrictions after some are lifted Monday depends on “what we’re seeing on the ground,” with virus impacts, de Villa said.

She cited a need to “restore much of what we have missed by way of activities and services and all those other aspects of life that have frankly been more challenging over the last couple of years … we’ve always recognized that the experience of health and the maintenance of health is about more than any single dimension.”

Her comments echo those a day earlier from Ontario public health chief Dr. Kieran Moore, who said that, given flattening but still high infection rates, Ontarians will need to learn to live with the virus.

“We have let our lives be controlled for the last two years in a significant amount of fear and now we are going to have to change some of that thinking,” Moore said.

De Villa said other data, including virus levels in Toronto wastewater data now being posted online, suggest infection levels have plateaued or are starting to drop.

But the province’s decision to ease restrictions Monday, including allowing gyms and indoor dining to reopen, will inevitably see more people mingling and increase the number of local infections, she said.