Niagara can avoid further COVID-19 restrictions, Hirji says

Niagara can avoid moving into the more restrictive COVID-19 red or gray areas of the province and possibly even drop a level if residents restrict social contacts, the medical health officer says.

There are eight areas in the province that are currently facing more restrictions than Niagara is facing under the province’s COVID-19 framework.

Starting Monday, the province will move Windsor-Essex from the orange restriction level Niagara is currently in to the red control level, the most restrictive available before large-scale operations close.

Dr Mustafa Hirji said it is not inevitable that Niagara will follow that path.

“I absolutely believe we can avoid that and my goal is that we end up in yellow instead of red,” said Hirji.

“I think it’s very doable, but it’s only doable if we limit our social contacts for the next few weeks and lower our numbers. If we can do it by Christmas, that would be a really good thing.”

Niagara had 26 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the Monday total to 108.

The province’s color-coded restrictions framework has five levels ranging from green, with the least restrictions, to yellow, orange, red and gray, which has the maximum sizes. Gray activates a lockdown that Toronto and Peel are currently experiencing.

There are six regions now in the red tier, including Hamilton, Halton, Windsor-Essex, Waterloo, Durham, and York.

Hirji said the province has seven parameters to examine before determining whether a region moves to another level.

This includes the reproductive number, which is the average number of individuals a case of COVID-19 will spread to and infect. Niagara’s reproductive number is one, which places it in the lower yellow level for the metric.

“That reproductive number of one implies we’re a little flat,” Hirji said. “We’re not going up, but we’re not going down either.”

The number of new COVID-19 cases per week is also being studied for a population of 100,000. Anything between 25 and 40 is in the orange layer.

Niagara is currently at 33.6 per week, although the region rose to 42.6 earlier in the month, which would put it in the red zone. However, Hirji said all other measures weren’t that bad, so it wasn’t enough to trigger a change in restrictions at the time.

Other parameters examined by the province are the percentage of new cases whose exposure is unknown and the number of outbreaks in a region.

The ability of the public health system to be able to follow up cases and contacts is also taken into consideration. Hirji said public health is barely hitting its target this week.

The capacity of the hospital system is also measured, and Hirji said Niagara is doing well as there aren’t many hospital beds filled by COVID-19 patients.

Niagara Health reported eight patients in total to its hospitals on Friday. He admitted 164 since the pandemic began in March.

The percentage of COVID-19 tests that are positive is also part of the province’s parameters. Niagara is registering a positivity of 2.1%.

Hirji said that overall, for most measures, Niagara falls within the orange level but would like to see the numbers come back.

If Niagara drops to the yellow level, he said it would lift some restrictions on commercial activities that would be good for the economy and give the region a buffer in case there was a spike in gathering cases during the Christmas holidays.

“But my hope is that we will be able to reduce this number again. This will only happen if we limit our social contacts with people right now. “