Public health officials in Ontario are explaining some of the reasoning behind the lockdown.
There are fears of a continued spike in new cases of COVID-19 emerging from the holidays.
University of Toronto’s Dr. Adalsteinn Brown says even if we flattened the curve right now, we still can expect to see an estimated 3-thousand cases per day.
“However, if we continue at about one or two to 3% growth, we’re going to be between 3,000 and 5,000 cases by the 4th week in January,” says Dr. Brown.
Brown says substantial growth could lead to 30,000 cases per day by the end of January.
That increase puts a strain on the province’s health care system and continued pressure on hospital ICU beds.
“So significant growth, even at 3%, which is less than what we’ve seen over the last several days, on average, you still see about 600 beds occupied.”
Brown adds we could also see deaths related to COVID rise to 50 per day by the next month.
The province modelling is based on similar experiences in countries like Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Frances and the United Kingdom.
All implemented lockdowns of varying lengths.
“Without action, which all of these countries have done to bring it down, you would likely to see continued case growth and a great risk of that accelerated case growth,” says Dr. Brown.
Officials also looked at potential start dates and lengths of the lockdown.
They says the longer a lockdown occurs, the lower the number of new cases there will be by the end.
