Ontario’s daily COVID-19 case counts are lower than what many experts had expected by now, and while they point to a number of factors for the relative relief, they say now is not the time to ease up on those measures.
For much of the summer, the province’s top doctor warned of a September surge, followed by a bleak fall and winter. That has not materialized – yet – as the daily case counts remain under 1,000 and the graph of Ontario’s seven-day average roughly shows a plateau since the beginning of September.
That’s well under the worst-case scenario in Ontario’s most recent modelling, which showed about 4,000 daily cases by now. Reality is more in line with the best-case scenario, in which cases would have steadily fallen since Sept. 1.
Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease physician at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, said hospitalizations and ICU admissions are also stable even without more restrictions being introduced – noting the proof-of-vaccination system only took effect a few days ago.
“There is a little bit of cautious optimism in that with society being more open, kids back to school, all of the things that we…would have concerns about leading to escalating transmission, we’re not seeing,” he said.
Ontario’s vaccination campaign is certainly helping, he said, particularly the targeting of high-risk communities. About 86 per cent of eligible people have received at least one dose.
The province’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, attributed the stable cases to Ontarians’ adherence to public health measures.
“I think Ontarians are being prudent and cautious and have realized that this virus can take off at any given time if we let our guard down,” he said.
“Sadly, we only have to look out west to see what can happen if we let our guard down with this Delta.”
In Alberta, there are more than 10 times the number of active COVID-19 cases per capita than Ontario. Hospitals there are overwhelmed and the head of the Alberta Medical Association says major components of triage have already started.
Chagla noted that Alberta’s vaccination rate is not substantially lower than Ontario’s. What he sees as the major reason for Ontario’s relatively lower numbers is the different approach to public health measures.
In July, Alberta lifted its restrictions, including gathering limits and a mask mandate, while in Ontario a few weeks later, the government announced that it would delay any further lifting of restrictions. Masks were still going to be required even when the province moved out of Step 3 of its reopening.
Masks certainly help, Chagla said, but it also matters what signal a government is sending, whether the pandemic is being treated as over.
“I think again, not getting to a point where there were complete decompression of all the rules, treating COVID as if it was normal, I think it again kept that foot on the gas to continue vaccinating even through the summer aggressively, using every last mile effort to get it out there,” he said.
“Keeping some of these precautions on I think helps also with that behavioural piece about people still taking it seriously and not creating the opportunities for transmission.”
Beate Sander, the co-chair of the province’s modelling consensus table, said she would have expected to see more cases by now, but that doesn’t mean a bump won’t materialize in a few weeks.
“The situation is so very fragile,” said Sander, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
“It’s stable, it’s not exactly decreasing. So things could turn really quickly. You just need to look at Alberta, to look at how quickly things could change.”
Sander said Ontario likely has not yet seen the rise in cases that schools will spark. In-person classes have been in session again for a little over two weeks, but Sander said because most of a child’s contacts – such as their parents – are likely vaccinated, if a child gets COVID-19, it would take the virus longer to find someone else to infect.
“The rate of infection has been increasing quite a lot in the five-to-11-year-old kids,” Sander said.
“Something is growing under the surface and because it’s relatively small numbers compared to the overall population, it’s going to take a while to go through.”
The colder weather will likely also force more gatherings and activities indoors and drive transmission, the experts said.
“We’re just right at that point where things could flip and we could be out of balance,” Sander said. “We do not want to open up anything else.”
Moore said he is still expecting a difficult winter.
“I have seen modelling where we have a significant rise in January and February after the Christmas holidays and that is disconcerting,” he said.
A bit of optimism is good to have, Chagla said, but it’s still important to continue doing everything that has led Ontario to this point.
“There’s a lot of factors that probably say we’re going to come out on the other side towards the late winter, early spring and start getting back to a true normal, but there’s still variants…there’s still a lot of things that could go wrong,” he said.
In today’s Big Story podcast, the app is called Staffy and it was created to help the hospitality industry fill gaps in scheduling when a server or cook couldn’t work. But when the pandemic began and shortages rose at long-term care homes and hospitals, Staffy pivoted to focus on demand. Now nurses and care workers and more are taking day gigs through the app, with no benefits, insurance, sick days or anything else.
Is it ethical to bring health care into the gig economy? And if it isn’t, why do we think drivers or handymen are different?
GUEST: Alison Motluk
You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify
You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.
A youth-led demonstration demanding urgent climate action from leaders in all levels of government is expected today at the Ontario legislature.
Fridays For Future Toronto is organizing the rally and march, which is set to begin at Queen’s Park at 12:30 p.m.
Organizer Alienor Rougeout says the demonstration is an opportunity for people to demand urgent action from politicians on tackling issues related to climate change.
She says the rally will also call on the newly re-elected federal Liberal government to deliver on the climate promises it made during the recent election campaign.
Those behind the rally are also calling for action that includes adding climate justice to the Ontario education curriculum for all grades, ending encampment evictions in Toronto, and full implementation of calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Similar demonstrations are planned in locations across the country as part of the #FridaysForFuture school strike movement, which started in August 2018.
Summary
Liberals pick up one more seat in Quebec, pushing them slightly ahead of the BQ in the province, 34-33
Counting was complete Thursday afternoon in Quebec, Ontario and Atlantic Canada
As remaining results come in, election experts warned a recount will determine winner in photo-finish ridings
Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have picked up one more seat in Quebec, pushing them slightly ahead of the Bloc Quebecois in the province.
Brome-Missisquoi is the only riding so far to change hands since Monday’s preliminary election results, which did not include some 850,000 mail-in ballots.
Once election officials finished counting postal votes in the riding Thursday, Liberal Pascale St-Onge edged ahead of the Bloc’s Marilou Alarie by just 186 votes.
That leaves the Liberals leading or elected in 34 of Quebec’s 78 seats, to the Bloc’s 33 and also puts them slightly ahead in terms of the popular vote.
The Conservatives are leading or elected in 10 Quebec ridings and the NDP in just one.
Nationally, the Brome-Missisquoi victory puts the Liberals at 159 seats, although one of them was won by a disavowed Liberal candidate – Kevin Vuong in Toronto’s Spadina-Fort York – who will now have to sit as an Independent MP.
Late Thursday, Taleeb Noormohamed was declared the winner in Vancouver Granville by 436 votes over Anjali Appadurai of the NDP.
With the mail-in ballot count still continuing in three tightly-contested ridings Thursday evening, the Conservatives stood at 119 seats, the NDP at 25 and the Greens at two.
However, recounts are expected in a clutch of close-run ridings, where a handful of votes separates the victor from the loser.
In most ridings in Quebec, Ontario and Atlantic Canada, counting was complete by Thursday afternoon, as well as in the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
But across B.C. _ where more mail-in ballots were received than any other province _ election officials were still tallying thousands of votes.
RELATED: Federal election map and results
RELATED: Toronto, GTA ridings: 2021 Federal Election results
As the remaining results rolled in, election experts warned that, in a few photo-finish ridings, a recount will have to settle who ultimately sits in Parliament.
Experts say a recount is expected in the Winnipeg-area riding of Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley where Conservative Marty Morantz beat Liberal Doug Eyolfson by just 24 votes.
Elections Canada said on Thursday afternoon that counting had finished there and results were being verified.
A judicial recount would likely be triggered there because the margin is so small, experts said.
Quito Maggi, a pollster who runs public opinion firm Mainstreet Research, said voters should expect recounts in a number of ridings.
“The Charleswood seat is heading for a judicial recount. I suspect that at least two or three other (candidates) will ask to go to recount,” Maggi said.
“We noticed at this election that there were a larger number than expected close races. The turnout was way, way down too. At least 1.2 million fewer people voted in this election than the last election.”
An automatic judicial recount is triggered if there is a tie between the two leading candidates or if the difference in votes is fewer than one one-thousandth of the total votes cast.
In other tight races, the loser has the option to go to court to ask for the votes to be counted again. The NDP, Conservatives and Liberals did not say, when asked by The Canadian Press, whether they would demand recounts in ridings where they have come second by a tiny margin of votes.
Among the close-run results is in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., where less than one per cent of the vote separates the Liberals and the Conservatives. Liberal Terry Sheehan narrowly fought off Tory Sonny Spina by 247 votes after mail ballots were counted.
In the Davenport riding in Toronto, the Liberals’ Julie Dzerowicz won by fewer than 200 votes, after a close-fought challenge from the NDP.
The NDP snatched Edmonton Griesbach from the Tories, with a greater than expected margin, after a dynamic campaign by two-spirit Metis leader Blake Desjarlais.
Similarly, Liberal Patrick Weiler emerged Thursday from the mail-in count with a lead of almost 2,500 votes ahead of his Conservative rival in B.C.’s West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea-to-Sky Country.
Elections Canada expected more ridings to finish counting mail-in ballots Thursday night. But in some with thousands of postal votes _ many of them in B.C. _ counting will continue on Friday.
On Thursday evening, several B.C. ridings, including Nanaimo-Ladysmith, which is the site of a fierce battle between the NDP, Conservatives and Greens, were still counting.
In Victoria, elections officials were busy tallying up more than 12,600 ballots sent in by mail _ the most in Canada.
Counting was also progressing in Saanich-Gulf Islands, where over 10,700 people have opted for postal votes and Elizabeth May, the former Green party leader, was on Thursday declared the winner.
But in Richmond Centre, B.C., voters were holding their breath as mail ballots were tallied in an epic battle between rookie Wilson Miao and veteran incumbent Alice Wong.
On Thursday, Liberal Miao had a narrow lead over veteran Conservative Wong who has been the local MP since 2008.
Elections Canada said it expected counting to be completed in almost all ridings by Friday.
EDMONTON — The head of Alberta Health Services (AHS) says the COVID-19 hospital crisis has become so dire, a key reason the system hasn’t collapsed is because patients are dying.
“Each day we see a new high (total of critically ill patients),” Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of AHS, said Thursday.
Yiu said hospitals have admitted two dozen or more critically ill COVID-19 patients on average each day since Sunday.
“It’s tragic that we are only able to keep pace with these sort of numbers because in part some of our ICU patients have passed away,” she said. “This reality has a deep and lasting impact on our ICU teams.”
There were 310 patients Thursday in intensive care, the vast majority of them with COVID, and the vast majority of the COVID patients are not fully vaccinated or not vaccinated at all.
Alberta normally has 173 ICU beds, but has doubled that number to 350 by taking over extra spaces, such as operating rooms, and reassigning staff.
The result is non-urgent surgeries have been cancelled en masse across the province, including transplants, tumours, cancer operations and surgeries on children.
Physicians are being briefed in case resources get so short, they have to decide on the spot which patients get life-saving care and which don’t.
Yiu said it’s a fluid situation and they’re still determining when and how doctors will be asked to make those life-and-death decisions.
The United Conservative Party government has reached out for medical help from other provinces and from the federal government.
Bill Blair, the federal minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, said Ottawa can help by providing more critical care medical staff and by having the military airlift patients to other provinces.
RELATED ARTICLES:
“The Government of Canada will support the provincial government’s recent request and provide the necessary support,” Blair wrote in a statement on social media earlier Thursday.
“The federal assistance includes a range of capabilities, including the deployment of (Canadian Armed Forces) medical resources and/or aeromedical evacuation capability, as well as the deployment of Canadian Red Cross resources.”
There are more than 20,100 active COVID-19 cases in Alberta and more than 1,000 people in hospital with the illness. Deaths have also been on the rise. There were 29 fatalities reported Tuesday, 20 more Wednesday — including the first person under age 20 — and 17 on Thursday. More than 2,600 people have died in Alberta.
In Calgary, Alberta’s Opposition NDP leader said it’s time for Premier Jason Kenney to hand over public health decisions related to COVID-19 to medical professionals.
Rachel Notley said it has become clear that Kenney is more focused on his political survival than the pandemic.
“It never should have come to this,” Notley said.
“Jason Kenney knew his plan wasn’t working as early as July and he did nothing. In fact, he left (on a vacation). All through August and into September the UCP refused to act while the crisis escalated.
“Now all Albertans are suffering the consequences of the UCP’s collective inaction and ineptitude.”
Notley said sound public health decisions are being undermined by political compromises and called for the decisions to be turned over to Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical health officer, backed by an independent scientific panel of advisers.
For months, Kenney has faced escalating criticism and calls for his resignation over his handling of COVID-19. The criticism began before last Christmas when his government was late to react to a second wave swamping hospitals. The government was late again in the third wave in May and is now chasing the pandemic again in what has become the fourth, and worst, wave.
At each stage, Kenney has been accused of pandering to anti-restriction elements in his party and waiting too late to implement rules to maintain public health.
Some United Conservative constituency associations are pushing for an immediate review of his leadership.
Joel Mullan, the party’s vice-president in charge of policy, has openly called for Kenney’s resignation, saying the public and the party have lost trust.
Kenney met with his caucus Wednesday and later asked the party to move up a leadership review from late 2022.
WATCH: Jason Kenney escaped what was expected to be a tense caucus meeting unscathed on Wednesday.
“The premier spoke with the president … and requested that the 2022 UCP (annual general meeting) take place in the spring and that the scheduled leadership review occur at that time,” Dave Prisco, the UCP director of communications, said in a statement.
“The party is working to confirm a date and venue to make it a reality.”
Kenney deflected reporters’ questions earlier this week on whether he should resign, saying he’s focused on COVID-19 and not on political intrigue.
In today’s Big Story podcast, a month ago, they were close to dead in the standings. They needed a miracle. Now they are in the final stages of a playoff push and no team in their right mind wants to face the Blue Jays in the post-season. How did Toronto turn it all around? What will it take to bring it home this final week? And what does a thrilling September for baseball in Canada mean for a country that just trudged through a joyless election and is facing a fourth pandemic wave?
GUEST: Stephen Brunt, Sportsnet
You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify
You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.
A man is dead following a shooting in Mississauga on Wednesday night.
Peel regional police and paramedics were called an industrial plaza in the Mid-Way Boulevard and Columbus Road area just before 8:15 p.m.
When emergency services arrived, they located a male victim who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police say the victim was in a parked vehicle at the plaza when a gunman approached and shot him at close range.
Police report a vehicle seen fleeing the area, but no description has been provided of the suspect or vehicle at this time.
One person has died and another injured in a shooting in Brampton on Wednesday evening.
Police were called to a residence in the area of Airport Road and Countryside Drive shortly before 5 p.m. for reports of a shooting and found two victims suffering from gunshot wounds.
Despite the efforts of paramedics, a man was pronounced dead on the scene. A woman was taken to hospital in non-life threatening condition. Police say they were known to each other, but it is unclear if they lived in the residence.
Police say they believe approximately three suspects went to the home in a vehicle and then fled the area in that same vehicle following the shooting.
Shortly after the shooting, police received another 9-1-1 call about a car fire in the area of Grenoble Boulevard and Williams Parkway.
When police arrived on scene they did not find anyone inside or near the vehicle. Investigators believe the vehicle could possibly have been involved in the shooting.
Homicide detectives will be taking over the case.
Anyone with information is asked to come forward.
Summary
Toronto’s Spadina-Fort York was declared for Kevin Vuong, who will sit as an Independent MP
Elections Canada says in some ridings with thousands of mail-in ballots, final results may not be available until Friday
Elections Canada says in some ridings with thousands of postal votes, final results may not be available until Friday.
Elections Canada says it believes most of the 850,000 mail-in ballots not counted on Monday night have now been tallied, but there are still several close-run ridings that have yet to be determined.
On Wednesday, the ridings of Fredericton, Edmonton Centre, Northwest Territories and Yukon were declared for the Liberals after the count wrapped up, along with the Toronto riding of Davenport, where Liberal Julie Dzerowicz beat NDP candidate Alejandra Bravo by 165 votes.
Toronto’s Spadina-Fort York was declared for Kevin Vuong, who was on the ballot as a Liberal although he’d been disavowed by the party over a late campaign revelation that he’d been charged with sexual assault in 2019. The charge was later dropped but the party has said Vuong will have to sit as an Independent MP.
A recount is expected in the Winnipeg-area riding of Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley, where Conservative incumbent Marty Morantz beat out Liberal Doug Eyolfson by 24 votes.
In Edmonton Griesbach, where The Canadian Press is projecting that Blake Desjarlais delivered a notable victory for the NDP over the Conservatives, mail ballots are still being counted.
In Nanaimo-Ladysmith, less than a thousand votes separated New Democrat Lisa Marie Barron from Conservative Tamara Kronis, with Green Paul Manly, the incumbent, relatively close behind, where 6,892 postal votes were still being counted on Wednesday.
Elections Canada warned that in some ridings with thousands of postal votes, final results may not be available until Friday.
Kevin Vuong will not step down after winning his riding of Spadina-Fort York as a Liberal even though he was dumped from the party ticket.
He is being urged to step down days after he was removed from the party after officials became aware of a sexual assault charge from 2019.
The Liberals asked Kevin Vuong to “pause” his campaign once the allegations surfaced in an article by the Toronto Star. In a statement issued Saturday, they said that if elected, Vuong would not be a caucus member. It was too late to remove Vuong’s name or party affiliation from the ballot.
Vuong is projected to have won the Spadina-Fort York riding with mail-in ballots remaining but will sit as an Independent MP if he does take his seat in the House of Commons.
Toronto City councillor Joe Cressy, who serves in Ward 10 Spadina-Fort York, says Vuong “did not earn the right” to represent the riding and community.
“He should do the honourable and right thing and step aside. If he wants to sit as an independent MP, he should campaign for the job as one,” Cressy tweeted.
On Wednesday, Vuong issued a statement, saying he can “appreciate that not everyone is happy with my election,” adding he understands “why it is different in my case.”
“For those who feel this way, I understand the source of your doubts, and I will work hard to earn your trust,” said Vuong. “I also want to acknowledge the events in the final days of the election. Allegations of sexual assault are a serious matter, deserving of more discussion than this statement can provide. For these reasons, I intend to address them at a later date more wholly in a dedicated forum.”
The former Liberal candidate, who adamantly denies the sexual assault allegation, says he was involved in what he refers to as a “casual but intimate” relationship with the woman at the time.
“I understood everything to be consensual and was always respectful of her boundaries. I do not take these allegations against me lightly,” he added.
“For years, the voices of those who have experienced sexual violence were silenced. Given these challenges, I understand why some may be hesitant to believe the allegations made against me are false even if the charges were withdrawn.”
Court documents confirm Vuong was charged with sexual assault in 2019 and that the charge was withdrawn later that year.
Another Toronto MP, Liberal Nathaniel Erskine Smith, tweeted at Vuong saying “One earns trust by acting with integrity. In this case, that means stepping down.”
On Tuesday, Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca called on Vuong to “examine his conscience” and not take his seat in the House of Commons despite being elected in his Toronto riding.
“I continue to support the movement that we are seeing in society to confront what contributes to people’s feelings around a lack of safety, opportunity, and of equal participation in our society,” Vuong continued.
“There is work to be done to regain trust; I fully intend to do so.”
The Liberal party has said Vuong did not reveal the charge when he was being vetted as a prospective candidate.
The Canadian Armed Forces is also reviewing the matter because Vuong, a naval reservist, did not notify the military when he was charged, as is required.
With files from The Canadian Press
