The COVID-19 situation may start to improve in Ontario soon, according to the province’s associate chief medical officer of health.
The province surpassed 7,400 new cases Monday, with 421 new positive tests. There are now 291 deaths from the disease.
Dr. Barbara Yaffe says officials predict the number of new cases each day will reach its highest point this week.
“The number of new cases each day has been going down slightly. Not exactly, but the general trend,” Dr. Yaffe explains.
The provincial health official says we could see a decline if the measures in place continue, like physical distancing and staying home.
“The epidemic curve usually is symmetrical, which means there will still be cases, but we’ll be on the down side. That does give me a glimmer of hope, but with some caution built in,” she says.
Meanwhile, Dr. Yaffe still doesn’t recommend testing every long-term care resident, despite confirming 89 outbreaks in such facilities.
She says if long-term care homes reacted to a positive case by testing all staff and residents without symptoms, that would only show them a snapshot in time.
“You may pick up something–unlikely–you may pick up nothing. And you may be wasting a lot of tests that should be done on other people who are in an outbreak situation, or in the other groups that are very high priority,” Dr. Yaffe argues.
This comes after Dr. Yaffe said over the weekend that Ontario would not be following Quebec’s lead, as officials in that province say they will test all long-term care residents. It also follows Premier Doug Ford’s comment Monday afternoon that they would increase testing in long-term care.
