TORONTO — New COVID-19 modelling touted by Premier Doug Ford as “good news” shows that Ontario will continue to see between 800 and 1,200 new cases per day.
“The trajectory appears to be moving away from the worst case,” said Adalsteinn Brown, dean of the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, at a briefing for journalists.
“... We’re just getting a slower period of growth.”
Earlier Thursday, Ford suggested that the numbers would show a “decline.”
He was referring to the rate of growth, spokesperson Ivana Yelich told HuffPost Canada in an email. “This is a positive step in controlling the spread and flattening the curve,” she said.
Ontario’s seven-day average for the number of daily new cases is now near 900, Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health said. The province reported 934 new cases Thursday and 10 deaths.
He said Ontarians need to keep following public health advice. That means limiting close contact to people in their household, washing hands frequently, wearing a mask whenever physical distancing isn’t possible and staying home when sick.
Earlier:
The new data shows a “sharp increase” in the number of cases and deaths in long-term care homes, Brown said. More long-term care residents have died in the past week than between Aug. 15 and Oct. 8, he said.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has risen 56 per cent in the past three weeks. And public health units are struggling with contact tracing: officials cannot identify where 65 per cent of newly diagnosed Torontonians and 49 per cent of newly diagnosed Ottawans caught the novel coronavirus.
One reporter on the phone line was blunt: “I’m just not getting why you guys sound, sort of, positive.”
Dr. Dirk Huyer, the province’s chief coroner, said they wanted to highlight that people’s efforts are making some difference.
“We are still seeing growth. We are still seeing people sick in the hospital. We are still seeing people in the intensive care unit,” he said.
“There is some slowing of that growth, which is so important because it speaks to the efforts that everybody is making.”