“there were probably a lot more cases back then that were not tested for and not reported, so the number of cases in april is probably significantly higher,” says dr. jennifer kwan , a burlington family physician. “even though the official number was 600, compared to now where we’re also at 600, our testing has improved.”
#covid19 in #ontario [oct 5]:
— dr. jennifer kwan (@jkwan_md) october 5, 2020
54814 known cases* (615 new cases)
2980 total deaths (5 new deaths)
46360 resolved (541 new resolved)
see thread for more graphs📈⤵️#onhealth #covid19ontario #onpoli pic.twitter.com/hsgdeyndxb
despite the fact that ontario’s testing capacity has expanded since the early days of the pandemic, the province has a backlog of 68,000 tests , which means today’s numbers are likely much higher than reported. new testing criteria does not recommend routine testing for asymptomatic people, which limits who can get a test will also lead to underreporting, plus, the long wait times in ontario makes it less likely people will go to get a test.
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the steep increases in community transmission have also overwhelmed public health systems to the point that many canadian cities have had to temporarily shut down contact tracing efforts, which means people are no longer being advised of potential exposure to the virus. and while the covid alert app helps people do their own contact tracing, only three million canadians so far have downloaded the app — it’s going to require a majority of the population to use the app for it to work.
kwan is also watching the percent-positive rate — which shows the percentage of positive covid tests. a high percentage, such as five per cent, means infection and community transmission is high and more testing should be done. it also shows that it’s time to add restrictions to slow the spread. anything higher than five per cent is considered too high , says the world health organization. in parts of toronto, some communities — particularly marginalized and low-income communities — are facing percent-positive rates as high as 11 per cent , reports the star.
north west toronto is on fire! this is a snapshot of test positivity rates, good is <1%, 3% should prompt shutdowns, 11% is insane! racialized communities live here and crowded industrial workplaces; it was an epicentre in wave 1. we have failed them once again #covid19ontario pic.twitter.com/p7tqrxpkyw
— kashif pirzada, md (@kashprime) october 5, 2020
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other processes that should be in place, according to kwan, include smaller class sizes to reduce spread of the virus in schools as well as the availability of rapid tests to alleviate the burden on lab processing. she points to local antigen tests that have been developed in halifax, such as sona nanotech’s antigen tests , and guelph, ontario’s precision biomonitoring .
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dduong@postmedia.com
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@dianaduo
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