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“An important practical issue that requires further study is the question of when such interventions can be relaxed,” wrote the authors of the 2007 paper that was published in the PNAS. “In the absence of an effective vaccine, cities that use NPI (physical distancing restrictions) to mitigate the impact of a pandemic remain vulnerable.”

That means such measures will likely need to stay in place for longer than the two to eight weeks that was the norm in 1918, they added.

Postmedia

This week, even as some provinces talked about plans to relax restrictions, Ottawa’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Vera Etches acknowledged that finding the balance between infection control and relaxed restrictions will not be easy.

“COVID-19 will be part of our lives and how we live into the foreseeable future,” she said, adding “we are not quite there yet” when it comes to relaxing restrictions.

Canada, in general, has been comparatively successful at reducing the spread of COVID-19 through strict physical distancing measures and shutdowns of all but essential businesses, although low rates of testing — especially in Ontario — make it difficult to know the true number of cases.

Long-term care and nursing homes, which have seen the majority of deaths in Ottawa and across Ontario, are the exception. As the growth of new cases slows down across the province, numbers are going up in those homes.

Ottawa health officials estimate that no more than two per cent of the local population has been infected with COVID-19 since the first person tested positive in mid-March.