[ad_1]
The Ontario government is expected to spell out its guidelines today to celebrate the upcoming winter holidays as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
Toronto and the Peel region are currently under the gray level or blockade in the province’s tiered COVID-19 alert system, with such restrictions set to remain in effect until at least Christmas week.
Public health measures below the lockdown level include banning indoor gatherings except with those of the same family, as well as closing restaurants for all but takeout and delivery.
The province’s chief health medical officer said earlier this week that it seemed unlikely the situation would improve in those regions in 28 days enough to justify their shift to the red alert level, which is a lower level. Previously, Dr. David Williams was mocked for his suggestion that the entire province could be in the green zone by Christmas.
Five other regions – Hamilton, Durham, Halton, York and Waterloo – are currently classified as red zones, closing social gatherings with five indoors and 25 outdoors.
The most recent models from Ontario showed that the province is on track to see up to 6,500 new daily COVID-19 cases by mid-December, though those projections are expected to be updated on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Ontario Auditor General says the province’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been slower and more responsive than that of other provinces, hampered by “delays and confusion in decision making.”
Bonnie Lysyk says outdated provincial contingency plans played a role in slowing the provincial response in the winter and spring, as well as systemic problems such as lack of peak lab capacity and old IT systems.
Lysyk is also aiming for an increasingly cumbersome command structure that has not been led by public health experts despite the creation and expansion of a provincial health command table which, according to her, now involves more than 500 people.
It also found that the province’s chief health officer has not fully exercised his powers in responding to the pandemic, nor has he issued directives to local health officials to ensure a consistent approach across all regions.
The Auditor General also expressed concern that laboratory tests, case management and contact tracing were not conducted in a timely enough manner to limit the spread of the virus, noting that between January and August all units public health but one failed to meet the goal of reporting test results within one day 60 percent of the time.
The findings are part of a special report released today that examines, among other things, Ontario’s emergency management in the context of the pandemic, epidemic planning and decision-making.
In the report, Lysyk says many of the problems his office identified would have been avoidable had the province followed the key lessons of the 2003 SARS outbreak before or during the health crisis.
Source link
