COVID-19 could kill 3,000 to 15,000 people in Ontario, provincial modelling shows

Provincial health experts say they expect COVID-19 could kill 3,000 to 15,000 people in the province over the course of the pandemic, the ramifications of which could last up to two years.

Those revelations were part of modelling projections the province released Friday about the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario.

Matthew Anderson, the head of Ontario Health, Adalsteinn Brown, dean of the University of Toronto’s public health department, and Dr. Peter Donnelly, who heads Public Health Ontario, are holding a news conference to explain the models.

“Had we done nothing, Ontario may have suffered 100,000 deaths,” Donnelly said, referencing the province’s physical distancing measures. “Thankfully, that is not the position we are in.”

Donnelly said he understands these figures may seem “scary, intimidating” and to many “unlikely.”

But, he said, every year in Ontario, about 1,350 people die from normal, seasonal flu. In a bad year, 1,500 people die.

“When you think that the mortality of this disease is up to ten times higher, and you remember we have no vaccine, and we have no specific treatment … then suddenly the figure of 15,000 becomes entirely logical and comprehensible.”

Donnelly said Friday that people can change the province’s outcome by staying home and physically distancing.

“We need everyone to stay focused in the weeks ahead,” he said.

Most ICU beds full

The number of available intensive care beds in certain parts of the Greater Toronto Area is rapidly shrinking as the number of COVID-19 patients surges higher, according to data obtained by CBC News.

Just 13 critical care beds remain available among the 153 ICU beds in the hospitals of the Central Local Health Integration Network, which includes Mackenzie Richmond Hill, Markham Stouffville, Southlake, Humber River, and North York General hospitals.

Those hospitals are caring for 28 patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 — double the number they were four days earlier.

The figures come from the latest available COVID-19 daily report from Critical Care Services Ontario, which was obtained by CBC News but has not been made public by the provincial health ministry. The report does not show a hospital-by-hospital breakdown of ICU bed occupancy rates.

The reports also show just 22 ICU beds available among the 163 critical care beds among the hospitals in the Central East Health Integration Network — including the Scarborough Health Network, Lakeridge Health, and Peterborough Regional.

The bulk of COVID-19 patients are cared for in what the province calls Level 3 critical care beds, the highest level of intensive care. In the Central East local health region, 89 per cent of those beds are full.

The reports also shows high demand for ventilators in the ICUs of the Central West Local Integrated Health Network, which includes the Etobicoke General and Brampton Civic hospitals of the William Osler Health System.

There are 33 ICU patients on ventilators in those hospitals, but their total official capacity of ICU beds with ventilators is just 26. The Ministry of Health has previously said it can provide extra ventilators to hospitals that need them from a centralized provincial stockpile.

Ford told reporters Thursday afternoon that with most snowbirds and Ontario residents who had been living outside of the province now back at home, experts have been able to more accurately measure the virus’s spread and project what may happen in the coming weeks.

“Now [we] have the proper measurements,” Ford said.

Dr. David Williams, the province’s chief medical officer of health, cautioned the numbers are forecasts, as opposed to the information that’s currently being shared daily with Ontarians, which is based on firm data.

While Ford is releasing Ontario’s models, the federal government still hasn’t published its own projections for how hard COVID-19 could hit Canada.

“We’ve been releasing information every single day on the data received from the provinces. We need to make sure the projections we will be releasing will be based on the most accurate information out there,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday.

“We need to make sure we have a better grasp on the accuracy of the data before we put projections out there.”

However, B.C.’s government released projections last week that included details about the pressure the virus could put on ICU beds.

‘We should be doing more testing in Ontario’

Mona Nemer, Canada’s chief science adviser, was critical of Ontario’s testing levels Thursday.

”Based on what we are seeing and the number of tests, I have to say that I am a little bit preoccupied by the situation in Ontario because we should be doing more testing in Ontario,” she told Radio-Canada. “And I hope they’re going to be able to ramp this up.”

A research team with experts from the University of Toronto, University Health Network and Sunnybrook Hospital has also published models looking at how COVID-19 might affect Ontario’s already strained medical system.

One of that group’s models, which CBC News reported on in mid-March, found the province could run out of ICU beds and ventilators in just over a month, even if it cut the infection rate in half.

CBC