

Chris Fox, CP24.com





Ontario has reported its lowest number of new COVID-19 cases in more than three weeks, with officials adding the rate of spread in the community has slowed and is approaching the point where a long-term decline in the number of cases is very likely.

Long-term care and other congregate settings however, are another story.

The Ministry of Health says that there were 347 new cases of the virus confirmed on Tuesday. That is the lowest number reported in any 24-hour period since April 6.

It also comes amid an encouraging week in general, as the province finally starts to see the number of new cases trending downwards after weeks on the rise.

After reporting a record 640 cases on April 24, the province has now posted single day totals of 476, 434, 424, 525 and now 347.

Officials, however, have warned that there will need to be a “consistent” two-to-four week decline in new cases and new hospitalizations before the province can begin to loosen restrictions that have shuttered businesses and brought public life to a virtual standstill.

Speaking about the data Wednesday, Ontario Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Williams says over the past week, approximately 50 per cent of cases detected have been in the general community, while the other half were from residents and staff in long-term care and retirement homes.

“We may see that percentage that long-term care makes up of that (total) number will increase as we continue to undertake testing of the residents in there,” he said.

Meanwhile, recent data indicates the virus’ basic reproduction number, or the number of people each infected person transmits the virus to fell from about 1.3 last week to 1 this week.

The key to eliminating the virus in any jurisdiction is to get the reproductive number, or R₀, to fall below one.

“We wanted to get it below one – and it is at one,” Williams said.

Studies of coronavirus hotspots such as Wuhan, China, New York City or Lombardy, Italy indicate the reproduction number reached as high as five during periods of unmitigated outbreak.

More than 60 per cent of the province’s 15,728 lab-confirmed cases of the virus are now considered recovered.

“This is a positive trend, a positive trend that can give people hope that we are getting close top opening up,” Premier Doug Ford said at Queen’s Park on Wednesday afternoon. “I can’t give you dates right now but what I can give you is hope that we are getting closer. Every day we see that positive trend helps us get closer to the day that we open up.”

45 new deaths

While the number of new cases of COVID-19 seems to finally be going down after regularly surpassing the 500 threshold for the better part of a week, the death toll from the virus continues to rise.

The province is reporting another 45 deaths in its latest report, bringing the number of people who have died after contracting the virus so far to 996.

That number, however, is likely higher as the province’s data is only accurate as of 4 p.m. one day previous.

As of 10 a.m., Ontario’s 34 public health units were in fact reporting 1,045 deaths in people who have contracted the virus.

Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe said that of those deaths, approximately 85 per cent occurred in residents of long-term care homes or retirement residences.

She said she was aware of 775 deaths in long-term care homes, one death of a long-term care staff member, and 77 deaths in provincial retirement residences.

Hospitalizations also continue to trend upwards with 20 more COVID-19 patients ending up in hospitals over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 977. The total number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 province-wide has now risen by roughly 11 per cent since this time last week.

Encouragingly, the number of those people in intensive care units remains stable at 235. That number has mostly stayed the same for weeks now after reaching a high of 264 on April 9.

Speaking during his daily press conference at Queen’s Park, Ford said that Ontario has come “so far” in its fight against COVID-19 but he warned that a widespread lifting of restrictions at this point could be a “disaster.”

“I just ask people to hang in there. We are seeing a trend and we are going to get there. There is going to be positive news if we continue on with this over the next little while,” he said.

Another death in younger patient

While about three-quarters of all deaths (775) have occurred in long-term care homes, where Ford has likened the spread of the virus to “wildfire,” there has also been an increase in younger people dying after contracting COVID-19 as well.

The data released on Wednesday includes one additional fatality in a patient between the ages of 20 and 39, bringing the number of deaths in that group so far to seven. That’s an increase of five since this time last week.

The province conducted 11,554 tests for COVID-19 on Tuesday, which remains short of both the 12,500 daily test threshold that officials had hoped to hit by April 22 and the 14,000 daily tests that they want to be doing by the end of this month.

“We know that testing has been an issue in many provinces for a while and of course we have seen some significant improvements but for the next phase of this epidemic when these public health restrictions are going to be slowly lifted we are going to need incredible testing capacity,” infectious diseases expert Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CP24 on Wednesday morning. “That doesn’t just mean the ability to do the tests; it also means the ability to do the tests with a very rapid turnaround time so that that if there is a positive we can identify that individual and really prevent the reintroduction of this infection into communities where perhaps there is less of it because we have gotten the case counts down.”

Other highlights from the data: