COVID-19: Peel orders partial closure of Amazon plants; Ontario reports 4,094 new cases

April 24, 2021NOW Staff

A person in a mask runs on the sidewalk in Toronto on April 15,2021

Top COVID-19 stories and news

Doug Ford’s mea culpa smells like a cover-up for a government in disarray

Here’s the list of people eligible for vaccines in Phase 2

Here are the rules for Ontario’s new stay-at-home-order

Ford calls for ban on non-essential air travel due to B1617 variant

1:30 pm Premier Doug Ford issued a statement on Saturday morning calling on Ottawa to immediately close all non-essential travel to Canada after the province detected 36 cases of the B1617 variant.

“The images we are seeing from other parts of the world right now are heartbreaking,” he said. “These deadly new variants are causing devastation in India and other countries. We can’t let it happen here.”

The federal government suspended all non-essential air travel from India and Pakistan for 30 days after officials detected a disproportionally higher number of cases among passengers travelling on flights originating in those countries.

Ford said the measures came “far too late and don’t do nearly enough to protect Canadians.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada said this week that 274,822 travellers (air and land) were tested between February 22 and April 19 and 1.4 per cent – or 3,732 – were positive for COVID-19.

Ontario science advisors: Reallocate 50 per cent of vaccines to hot spots

1:10 pm A briefing note published by Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisors on Friday recommends the province immediately reallocate 50 per cent of the next three million vaccines to the 20 per cent of neighbourhoods with the highest cumulative cases.

The note also says vaccinating all residents age 16 and up in hot spots could “substantially” reduce overall COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths in both younger and older people.

“This is because the hot spot-accelerated vaccination strategy not only affords more direct protection to Ontario’s younger residents and essential workers in COVID-19 hot spots, but it also affords substantially more indirect protection to older adults in these hot spots,” the advisors state.

“Essential workers experience a disproportionately high burden of SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19] infection, especially in the absence of paid sick leave and enhanced supports for workplace safety. Older adults, especially those living in multi-generational households, will benefit from fewer infections among younger adults, many of whom are essential workers.”

To date, Ontario’s vaccination strategy has been to distribute shots on a per capita basis and prioritize populations by age, chronic health conditions and high-risk congregate care settings, COVID-19 hotspot and essential workers.

By April 5, the research notes, people living in areas with the lowest risk of catching COVID-19 were 1.5 times more likely to have received at least one vaccine dose compared with residents in hot spots with the highest level of risk.

Areas with the most essential workers in non-health-care settings have infections rates that are three times higher than areas with fewer essential workers.

As of April 5, 15 per cent of people in Ontario had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Peel Region orders partial closure of two Amazon plants

12:45 pm Peel Region has ordered two Amazon Fulfillment Centres to partially close.

Effectively today, public health officials partially closed the plants at 8050 Heritage Road in Brampton and 12724 Coleraine Drive in Bolton. Peel’s website states that a “partial closure may apply to a mass dismissal of a shift or work area.”

Earlier this week, Peel Region and Toronto enacted a section 22 order under provincial legislation to close workplaces when five or more workers test positive for COVID-19 within a period of 14 days.

Peel previously ordered the Heritage Road plant to shut down in mid-March following an outbreak.

On Friday, public health officials in Peel said Amazon was among three employers that will be hosting COVID-19 vaccine clinics for workers and the surrounding areas through a public-private partnership.

Ontario’s seven-day average for new cases continues to decline

11:55 am Ontario reported 4,094 new COVID-19 cases and 24 more deaths on April 24 as some public health indicators appear to be on the decline.

The province confirmed 4,505 cases on Friday, 3,682 on Thursday, 4,212 on Wednesday and 3,469 on Tuesday.

The seven-day average for new infections, which experts consider a more accurate indication of virus spread, has dropped to 4,094, down from 4,370 last Saturday.

Earlier this week, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health David Williams said there were indications the epidemic is plateauing but that the province’s situation is still precarious as the stay-at-home order is only just starting to impact the daily numbers.

“Some things are plateauing and some things are dipping down a bit,” Williams said during a news conference at Queen’s Park on Thursday. “These are indications that we might be starting to bend the curve a bit, but it has not been enough time yet.”

There’s also been a steady decrease in another key indicator: the reproductive number – or Rt. The Rt represents the number of people that a single case will infect. That number is now at 1.03, a drop from 1.23 in early April. The number must fall below 1.0 for the pandemic to die out.

In Toronto, the Rt is slightly higher than the provincial number but has also declined and is now at 1.05.

Hospitalizations dropped again today but intensive care unit admissions continue to climb. There are now 2,277 COVID-19 patients in Ontario hospitals, including 833 ICU patients – up by 15 since Friday. Of those, 600 are breathing with the help of a ventilator.

Of today’s deaths, one person was between the ages of 20 and 39 and two were between ages 40 and 59.

Labs in the province completed 52,160 tests in the past day, making for a positivity rate of 7.8 per cent, down from 9.2 per cent a week ago. In Toronto, the percent positivity rate has dropped to 11.32 per cent.

The province has administered a total of 4,527,368 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, up by 126,694 in the past day. To date, 1,026,176 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in Toronto.

On Friday, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam said nearly 30 per cent of adults in Canada over the age of 18 have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of April 17.

In presenting nation-wide data modelling numbers, Tam said public health restrictions appear to be working.

“For the first time in many weeks, the epidemic has dropped out of a growth pattern (nationally), primarily driven by recent declines in epidemic growth in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia,” she tweeted. “However, it is still very early days, some areas remain in an epidemic growth pattern, and we need to consistently maintain Rt (time varying reproductive number) below 1.0 to bring the epidemic under lasting control.”

If 75 per cent of eligible Canadians are vaccinated with a first dose by the summer, the modelling data showed public health restrictions could be lifted by July or August.