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Province just emailed journos the evidence that the science advisory, modelling & public health measures tables presented to support the new closures & interventions announced today.
I'll tweet all the pages with my own highlights:
I'll tweet all the pages with my own highlights:
Pg 1: Um, basically, everything looks bad:
- cases are way up, and things that take a while to catch up like hospitalizations are also way up
- percent positivity (the % of of cases testing positive) is far above 3%, the "int'l benchmark," in some regions*
*will get back to this
- cases are way up, and things that take a while to catch up like hospitalizations are also way up
- percent positivity (the % of of cases testing positive) is far above 3%, the "int'l benchmark," in some regions*
*will get back to this
Ontario is on the same track as Melbourne & its state of Victoria. (FYI, Melbourne locked down way harder and way earlier than us on this trajectory. 3 months later those restrictions are only starting to ease up.)
Testing % positivity is rapidly rising, and is especially high in Toronto and Peel. (The numbers here are actually lower than the health units are reporting: Peel told us yesterday theirs is 3.49% and that doesn't include cases that will come back later because of lab lags.)
FYI, here is our story from earlier this week on the even higher test % positivity in some pockets of Toronto, which sparked calls of alarm from federal & provincial officials: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/10/05/more-than-10-per-cent-of-covid-19-tests-are-coming-back-positive-in-some-pockets-of-toronto.html
COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen 250% over the last 3 weeks (!!!!). FYI, the flatter ICU line is likely to lag behind regular hospitalizations because it takes a while to get sick enough to be admitted to the ICU.
This wave started in a younger demographic but continues to bleed into older age groups, which are more likely to get severe COVID-19. As a result, even in the best-case scenario, this modelling suggests ICU capacity will be overtaken within 30 days. (I repeat: !!!)
As COVID-19 cases move increasingly into older age groups this will also result in increased outbreaks in LTCs and congregate settings, the most vulnerable groups. There is already a big rise in nursing home outbreaks. See @NathanStall for more.
As we saw in wave 1, the outbreak isn't the same everywhere. Toronto, Peel region and Ottawa are in serious trouble; other smaller urban centres so-so. I would also add that this clustering is also occurring WITHIN cities, esp in vulnerable neighbourhoods.
The easiest way to summarize this slide is: when cases get too high, every part of the healthcare system starts to breakdown. FYI here's our story today on the enormous challenges in Ontario's testing system right now: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/10/09/ontarios-covid-19-testing-system-in-upheaval-as-volumes-drop-positivity-rates-rise-and-samples-get-shipped-out-of-province.html
The faster governments apply new public health interventions, the quicker we get out of this mess. Side note: I would love to know where on the "Oxford COVID-19 government response stringency index" Ontario falls 
That's the last slide.
That's the last slide.
