The region’s chief health official is ‘not surprised’ by Ontario’s COVID-19 epidemiological modelling projections, as regional modelling exercises revealed much the same outcomes for the area.
According to modelling done by the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, there could be between 130 and 200 cases of lab-confirmed COVID-19 in the region, and between 15 and 20 deaths by the end of this month.
Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health for the region, said that would be just the tip of the iceberg.
“These are cases we’re aware of that are tested and brought to our attention,” he said. “There’s always quite a bit more … and we could end up with the potential for more hospitalization.”
Gardner said modelling predicted 440 to 640 people hospitalized but not confirmed positive for COVID-19 by the end of April.
The province of Ontario’s modelling released today showed under present public health restrictions, the province could see between 3,000 and 15,000 deaths over a two-year period from COVID-19. There could be as many as 1,600 deaths by the end of this month and 80,000 cases.
“Our own modelling in Simcoe Muskoka is aligned with this,” said Gardner. “We anticipate local deaths between 185 and 2,000 [over two years]. Had we not put in place these controls, it could be as much as 20 times as great as that.”
He said the modelling numbers for both the region and the province show the importance of the provincial public health measures put in place, including physical distancing, closure of non-essential services and schools, restrictions on gatherings over five people.
The provincial data predicted there could have been as many as 6,000 deaths in Ontario by the end of April had restrictions not been put in place and closures not mandated.
“This all speaks to the utter importance of what the province has done in making these restrictions,” said Gardner. “These restrictions are extremely hard on us all.”
Gardner said he could see the restrictions waxing and waning over the next two years.
“If we’re very successful in controlling exposure through physical distancing, we can avoid most people getting infected, which means most people will still be vulnerable to infection,” said Gardner. “We’ll have to keep up, on an intermittent basis, those controls because it can readily come back and infect a population that is not infected. That will remain the case until we can develop a vaccine … which is predicted to take somewhere in the range of a year and a half from now, and then we have to have a program to actually deliver it to the population.”
The doctor acknowledged two years of on-and-off public health restrictions and staying at home is concerning for everyone.
“This is unprecedented, this kind of restriction on the world,” said Gardner, adding people will have to rely more and more on technology for virtual – instead of physical – connection. “I don’t think there’s any experience we can draw on to speak to the adequacy of that to meet our social and emotional and mental health needs.”
There are currently 73 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Simcoe Muskoka region. There are 11 patients hospitalized for the virus and seven of those are in intensive care units intubated on ventilators.
There have been four deaths in Simcoe County, and 20 of the region’s cases have recovered.
According to the case statistics posted on the SMDHU website there are 38 cases in patients aged 35 to 64 years old, 17 in people under 34, and another 16 in people 65 years and older. There are two cases still pending.
Thirty-three of the area’s cases are travel-related, 15 are close contacts of other known cases, and 21 are community-acquired. Four are under investigation.
