The Ontario government is expected to spell out its guidelines today for celebrating the upcoming winter holidays as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
Toronto and Peel Region are currently under the grey or lockdown level in the province's tiered COVID-19 alert system, with those restrictions set to stay in place at least until the week of Christmas.
Public health measures under the lockdown level include a ban on indoor gatherings except with those in the same household, as well as closing down restaurants for all but takeout and delivery.
The province's chief medical officer of health said earlier this week it seemed unlikely the situation would improve in those regions enough over 28 days to warrant moving them to the red alert level, which is one level lower. Previously, Dr. David Williams was derided 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, which caps social gatherings at five people indoors and 25 outdoors.
Ontario's most recent modelling showed the province is on track to see up to 6,500 new daily cases of COVID-19 by mid-December, though those projections are expected to be updated Thursday.
Meanwhile, Ontario's auditor general says the province's response to the COVID-19 pandemic was slower and more reactive than that of other provinces, hampered by "delays and confusion in decision-making."
Bonnie Lysyk says outdated provincial emergency plans played a role in slowing down the provincial response in the winter and spring, as did systemic issues such as a lack of laboratory surge capacity and old IT systems.
Lysyk also points to an increasingly cumbersome command structure, and one that was not led by public health expertise despite the creation and expansion of a provincial health command table that she says now involves more than 500 people.
As well, she found the province's chief medical officer of health did not fully exercise his powers in responding to the pandemic, or issue directives to local health officials to ensure a consistent approach across regions.
The auditor general also raised concerns that lab testing, case management and contact tracing were not being conducted in a timely enough manner to limit the spread of the virus, noting that between January and August, all but one public health unit failed to meet the target of reporting test results within a day 60 per cent of the time.
The findings are part of a special report released today that examines Ontario's emergency management in the context of the pandemic, and its outbreak planning and decision-making, among other things.
In the report, Lysyk says many of the issues her office identified would have been avoidable if the province had acted on key lessons from the 2003 SARS outbreak before or during the health crisis.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiaGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNiYy5jYS9uZXdzL2NhbmFkYS90b3JvbnRvL2NvdmlkLTE5LWNvcm9uYXZpcnVzLW9udGFyaW8tbm92ZW1iZXItMjQtbnVtYmVycy11cGRhdGUtMS41ODE1Mzc40gEgaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY2JjLmNhL2FtcC8xLjU4MTUzNzg?oc=5
2020-11-25 14:37:00Z
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