Ontario

Tuesday November 24, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 24, 2020

Here’s a Colour coded map of Covid Ontario

November 5, 2020

The Ontario government released a brand new colour-coded framework last week that outlines rules, restrictions and zones for every region throughout the province based on its local COVID-19 situation. To help you keep track, we’ve created a map of each region and its current designated zone.

The framework includes five different zones, each with a specific colour attached: Prevent-Green, Protect-Yellow, Restrict-Orange, Control-Red and Lockdown-Grey. 

In the green zone, “restrictions reflect broadest allowance of activities in Stage 3,” according to the province, while the highest-risk settings remain closed. In the yellow zone, enhanced targeted enforcement, fines and enhanced education to limit further transmission are present, and public health measures for high-risk settings are also in place. 

November 12, 2020

The orange zone, meanwhile, includes enhanced measures, restrictions and enforcement while avoiding any closures, and the red zone includes broader-scale measures and restrictions across multiple sectors to control transmission (similar to modified Stage 2).

“Restrictions are the most severe available before widescale business or organizational closure,” says the province of the red zone. 

The grey zone can be compared to a modified Stage 1 or pre-Stage 1, according to the government, with widescale measures and restrictions, including closures, to halt or interrupt transmission.

Marvellous Maps

Regions have been placed in specific zones based on a number of indicators and thresholds, including case rates, per cent positivity, health system capacity and more. 

While no regions have been placed in the Lockdown-Grey zone just yet, the province’s COVID-19 hotspots — Toronto, Peel, Hamilton, York and Halton — are all currently in the red zone, and both Toronto and Peel have additional restrictions in place, introduced by their local public health authorities. 

The COVID-19 Pandemic

Provincial public health officials will be constantly reexamining the indicators and thresholds to determine whether regions should move forward or backwards through the zones. (BlogTO) 

 

Thursday November 19, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 19, 2020

The province is dodging the truth on COVID-19 in long-term care

On Monday, Ontario’s long-term-care minister, Merrilee Fullerton, assured Ontarians that in spite of COVID-19 spreading through long-term-care homes, they’re actually doing better than they did in the first wave of this pandemic.

June 17, 2020

Speaking at Queen’s Park, the minister summed up: “There’s no doubt that lessons have been learned from the first wave and the data shows our homes are doing much, much better.”

Really? On Tuesday, 26 of 32 new COVID-19 deaths were in care homes. The province says 678 nursing home residents have the virus. And 100 of the province’s 626 care homes have outbreaks. 

Does that sound like “much, much better” to you? It doesn’t to us, either. And it doesn’t to many health experts. 

Health experts like Dr. Amit Arya of McMaster University, who described the first wave in long-term care as “a horror movie” and who says now: “We really have not done anything close to what we should have done to prepare for the second wave.”

Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, agrees. She has said in media reports: “It’s devastating … The numbers right now are just exploding.” She also says “we’re shaping up to have a worse second wave.”

Indeed, according to Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario: “The number of residents with COVID is increasing, the number of staff with COVID is increasing and the number of residents who die is increasing. How can anyone sleep well at night with that?”

May 27, 2020

It’s a good question. Notwithstanding Minister Fullerton’s claims to the contrary, it doesn’t seem as if Ontario’s retirement home care system is in a better place than it was during the first wave. It’s clear that the Ford government is concerned and has been trying to put improvements and protections in place, but the reality is that it started too late, and it had repeated warnings during and after the first wave.

The Registered Nurses’ Association, for example, asked the government to make investments in staffing with registered nurses, nurse practitioners, registered practical nurses and personal support workers in homes across Ontario. The government didn’t act. And so when the second wave hit, staffing levels were already at or below operative minimum, and that was before staff began to get sick and be absent. 

The government’s own LTC commission, in its interim report on fixing the system, released a series of recommendations urgently calling for action on things like staffing levels and compensation. Fullerton said her department was “carefully reviewing” the recommendations. 

July 17, 2020

This is all happening at the same time as a Toronto Star investigation revealsprivate LTC operation is such a lucrative business opportunity, private equity funds are being set up to cash in on the potential. That’s not surprising given the shortage of beds that continues to exist and our aging population. 

But keep in mind this is specifically about private, for-profit LTC operations. In Ontario, for-profit homes account for a little more than half of the province’s long-term-care beds. But they also accounted for 70 per cent of COVID deaths in the first wave of the pandemic. According to a Star analysis, so far in the second wave for-profit homes have just under 80 per cent of the deaths.

So if you’re a wealthy investor, there’s money to be made in for-profit long-term care. What is less clear is whether the for-profit model, where the bottom line is always going to competing for the top priority, even over resident care, has a place in the long-term-care system. That the government isn’t even considering that is troubling. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)

Friday November 13, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 13, 2020

Don’t give free rein to Ontario’s developers

Doug Ford is moving quickly but quietly to give Ontario’s developers the upper hand over Ontario’s environment.

November 22, 2019

For proof of this ominous change, check out how Premier Ford’s provincial government is stripping away the powers of Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities when it comes to approving new development in many of the province’s most vital natural areas.

Since mid-20th century, conservation authorities have been responsible not only for controlling floods but for protecting and restoring the land, water and natural habitats in this province. They’ve done a superb job, too, even if many developers consider them nothing more than red tape that slows or stops a money-making venture.

But in defiance of this long-held mandate, the Progressive Conservatives last week unveiled legislation that would curtail the conservation authorities’ ability to act as environmental guardians. And as if it was hoping the public wouldn’t notice what it was doing, the government slipped its proposals into its fat, omnibus budget bill.

The public, however, should take notice. What we’re witnessing is a direct threat to responsible environmental and land-use planning.

The new legislation would end the conservation authorities’ role in offering an informed response to development applications and how those applications might impact sensitive natural environments. More power to decide the fate of a proposed development, however controversial, would be handed to the provincial Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry.

If, where it still had jurisdiction, a conservation authority refused to issue a permit or imposed conditions for a development, a disgruntled developer could appeal directly to the natural resources minister or the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal. Until now, someone appealing a permit denial would have to go directly to the local conservation authority’s executive.

December 11, 2018

What the Ford government is doing is politicizing environmental and land-use planning. At the very least, its proposed changes to the Conservation Authorities Act raise the possibility a developer with a friend in government could one day win approval for a project over well-founded, local opposition.

This shouldn’t happen but the government intends to go even further. The province doesn’t want watershed management and conservation to remain core conservation authority programs, for which municipalities would have to pay. Instead, they would become voluntary programs a municipality could choose to support — or not. 

The Ford government seems to have a grudge against conservation authorities. Last year, it slashed its funding for the authorities by 50 per cent while telling them flood control must become their core mandate. Those shrunken budgets have made it harder for conservation authorities to plant trees, restore forests, and prevent soil erosion and water pollution, all jobs that make for a healthier environment.

May 3, 2018

If the new legislation passes, Ontario’s river valleys, flood plains, wetlands, Great Lakes shorelines — indeed, its water supplies — would be vulnerable to degradation in even more ways. It is also worth noting that the same government is increasingly resorting to ministerial zoning orders which allow it to permit development while bypassing the municipal planning process, environmental assessments and meaningful public consultation.

If Ford truly believes the current process for approving development is too cumbersome, he could streamline the rules, perhaps even imposing tighter deadlines for municipal governments and conservation authorities to respond to a project proposal.

But the interests of the economy, development and money have to be balanced with the interests of our environment. And where they can’t, the interests of the environment should prevail. Ontario should, as the song says, be “a place to grow.” But it should be place to grow for healthy environments, not just developers’ bank accounts. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

Thursday November 12, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 12, 2020

Doug Ford downloads hardest pandemic decision-making

Being a medical officer of health in an Ontario town or city has always been a big, challenging job. Being the MOH during a pandemic like this one is exponentially harder. Add in being the default decision-maker about what businesses can stay open and which must close, and you’ve got a job not for the faint of heart.

October 28, 2020

That is where Ontario’s medical officers find themselves today, with the provincial government apparently opting for a minimalist approach on pandemic policy at the very time when COVID-19 is spreading dramatically. At this rate, it will soon be out of control. It may already be.

On Wednesday, for the fourth time in five days, Ontario set a record reporting 1,426 new cases. The seven-day average stands at 1,217, the highest it has been since the pandemic began. Another unfortunate record: There are 10,361 active cases of COVID-19 in Ontario. And 92 long-term-care facilities are dealing with outbreaks, with that number expected to grow. Hospitalization rates remain relatively low, but if the current growth rate continues that is likely to change.

All this, even as Ontario labs processed 36,700 test samples, reporting a test positivity rate of 5.1 per cent. Health experts say a positivity rate of 3.0 indicates spread is at the tipping point toward exponential growth.

September 18, 2020

Why the provincial government chose this time to toss out the old pandemic control regime and adopt one that raises the bar on when provincially mandated control measures will be implemented is anyone’s guess. But from all appearances, the Ford government is putting keeping businesses open at the top of its priority list, even when doing so is not in the best interest of pandemic control.

When questioned about all this, Premier Doug Ford was quick point out that local public health authorities always have the option of imposing measures over and above the provincial guidelines. 

August 27, 2020

That stance puts municipal governments and their public health officers between a rock and a hard place. If you don’t believe that, ask local political and health officials in Peel Region and in Toronto. Both have implemented local lockdown measures because provincial measures were deemed insufficient under current circumstances.

Indoor dining and gyms, for example, are locked down for 28 days in both those jurisdictions. But now, instead of suffering businesspeople being angry with the province, they’re angry with local health officials and their municipal partners. 

May 16, 2020

In a way, this could be referred to as a new kind of provincial downloading. And like other forms of downloading, they serve the provincial government with little regard for the impact on municipalities and local health officials.

There is something to be said for the targeted approach to pandemic control. It is better overall than a one-size-fits all provincial solution, though it’s not perfect. But it does allow the provincial government to deflect responsibility for harsher lockdown measures.

Ontario is not in a good place in terms of controlling the spread of COVID-19. And that’s the cruelest paradox of all. Too many of us are sick and tired of pandemic restrictions on personal freedoms and commerce, so we slack off here and there, and the virus is ready and waiting for the opportunity. Now we are in the thick of the second wave, which is in many ways worse than the first. If we remain on the current trajectory, the most likely outcome is another hard lockdown like we experienced early in the pandemic. The Ford government won’t be able to dodge that bullet, and neither will the rest of us. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Thursday November 5, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 5, 2020

Doug Ford sold on new rating system, health experts not so much

Ontario’s new five-stage rating system for moving regions into and out of various pandemic restrictions is good news, according to many businesses. But it’s bad news according to some health authorities.

May 29, 2020

Perhaps both these things are true and the new system is good for businesses hanging on by their fingernails, and bad for others who think health outcomes are the only things that matters. 

The government is wrestling furiously with finding the right balance between efforts to flatten the curve and ways to help struggling businesses stay alive. It’s possible there is no perfect balance, and no satisfying everyone. 

According to some voices from the business sector, the colour-coded stage (green/good, yellow/less good, orange/worrisome, red/partial lockdown) approach, which also comes with specific measures that accompany each stage, will make stability and predictability possible, something that has not been the case so far. So if things are getting bad and the metrics look like they are moving in the wrong direction, businesses and individuals can step up their response before their region moves to the next stage. Or failing that they can foresee what might be coming rather than being in the dark. 

But on the public health side, there are issues. For one thing, the ceiling has been raised. For example, to take steps like closing restaurants, gyms and bars, the region would need to have a positivity of 10 per cent (100 cases per 100,000 people per week). And other factors, such as the health system and local public health authorities at risk of being overwhelmed, would have to be at play as well.

October 28, 2020

But that rate of infection has only happened a couple of times since the pandemic began. Since testing was ramped up in late spring no region has come close to 10 per cent. Doesn’t this suggest that those sorts of closures wouldn’t happen even under the worst case scenario? Has the government taken lockdowns off the table entirely in favour of protecting the battered economy?

Some health experts seem to think so. Dr. Michael Warner, head of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto, put it this way in an interview with Torstar’s Bruce Arthur: “It’s like public health is treading water, and the premier is pushing their heads down. It’s government that makes the decisions on public health, and not public health.”

Epidemiologist Dr. Nitin Mohan told Arthur: “They’re relying on people to understand their own risk threshold, and that’s not working well, and what you’re saying now, we’re going to open up, and the perception is things are safe. Essentially, you’re inviting a disaster.”

Dr. Andrew Morris, professor of infectious diseases at University of Toronto was more pointed. “This is going to be very ugly. We’re following the European approach here. The very first question that should be asked is in the presence of ongoing growth, how can you in any way justify loosening measures? That makes absolutely zero sense. The one thing you shouldn’t do when you’ve got a losing strategy is take on a worse strategy. Which is what they’re going to do.”

These are troubling statements. You don’t expect every health expert to be on exactly the same page, but when credible experts are this far removed from government policy, it sounds like there is a central disconnect. 

Yet we are assured the government is making policy decisions based on public health input from its own advisers. How can the experts advising the government and those quoted in the media and elsewhere be so far apart? Or is the government’s approach being driven by business instead of public health? (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)