Ontario COVID-19 cases trending in the wrong direction

We will now return to Ontario, where the numbers continue to trend in the

wrong

direction

. Today, the province recorded its highest number of new Kovat 19

cases

since early May, and for the fifth day in a row, Ontario fell short of its testing target. Premier Doug Ford says testing will begin to ramp up after new directive was issued and with some help from the feds and CBC's Lisa Shing now joins us from Toronto with the details Hi Lisa, good to see you again Hi Vashi, so what do we know about what? Ontario plans to do that, we're getting a better idea of ​​that today from ASEA, as for the last five days Ontario has been consistently lagging behind in the number of tests, we haven't met our goal of 16,000 tests per day, that goal for quite some time. time.

It's been a while and we are well below the 20,000 day capacity. Oh, we have about 11,000 tests on this today as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put out an appeal basically asking the provinces to step up testing and they're also offering federal help. not only with testing materials but also with the power of the people in terms of contact tracing, so in light of all that, journalists over the last few days have been asking what is the next step of this strategy of test after Ontario has finished testing long-term nursing homes. when we saw the numbers go up slightly and this is what Premier Doug Ford said today about we're going into nursing homes to test the elderly, we're going to test all the staff there, we're going back to long-term care, verifying with the staff and their residence there is also one thing to do the test once, but we have to continue with the testing, we are going to go to the frontline healthcare workers and we are going to test the asymptomatic and symptomatic people there, so they are just continuous tests.

Did I say we're going to increase it? We're going to ramp it up and then we're going to go to communities where there are, as I say, the hot spots and it's actually the urban centers around Toronto that we've seen. We also heard from Vashi that the province will begin testing people like truck drivers and those who work in factories starting next week and reminded him that this comes after a lot of criticism that the province doesn't have a plan. considering our capacity which is close to 20,000 tests per day, many experts have been asking if we have that capacity, why exactly aren't we using it to get a better idea of ​​what exactly is happening, especially in the community, so I spoke with An epidemiologist today told me that community testing is just as important right now as targeted testing, ideally in the short term, that's what you'd want to use that testing for is to really expand that testing and make sure that we're finding all the

cases

. in our community that we were lost before and then we can start talking about me.

Do you know how we more broadly monitor what's happening in the community? Now experts are also suggesting we should look to other provinces in Canada. and follow suit, for example, Alberta has begun testing all asymptomatic contacts of anyone who tests positive for Kovac 19. Saskatchewan has also expanded testing to include people such as workers physically returning to work, so a lot of people say we need to do it. We will be stepping up and following the examples of other provinces. Vashi, thank you Lisa. I really appreciate the update. You are welcome. Our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continued to drive home the message today about the need to test trace and share data.

He says to save lives we must first do it. Continue to expand our testing capacity so we can quickly identify new cases and isolate them. Second, we must accelerate our ability to conduct contact tracing. Our government has trained federal employees who can make thirty-six hundred contact tracing calls a day, seven days a week. Statistics Canada also has an additional 1,700 interviewers ready to work who can make up to 20,000 calls per day. Third, we ensure that data collected across jurisdictions is shared across provinces and territories. This will help us track the spread of the virus, adapt our response accordingly and save lives.

Despite all that, the two provinces most affected by Kovat 19 are currently falling short on testing and tracing, but Ontario and Quebec are also moving forward with their reopening plans. How concerned should we be about progress without broader testing and information on how The virus continues to spread joining us now medical columnist medical spam dr. Peter Lin is also a good friend of the show, hello dr. Lin, hello, great to see you, so let's start with the question of evidence because we are soliciting questions from our viewers for this segment. I would say about half of the ones I received were about whether we should be nervous about reopening the economies, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, given the numbers today, yes, the numbers are floating and therefore not going down, as we expect them to bounce up and down, so we hope that by now we will see lower numbers, in which case, when we open, we wait. some cases increased, so we have some room and cushion to increase, so the fact that we are not going down is a cause for some concern and the most worrying thing is that we do not know where those patients are coming from, in other words, many. a lot of times we just hear that your community is spreading well, we're in the community, it's the grocery store, it's the gas pumps, it's people going back to work, so we don't have a good idea where those cases are coming from and I .

I think it's information that we need to know, in other words, we as the public because if we suddenly know it's gas stations, then we'll be more careful when we're there if we know it's the supermarket. then we will be more careful when we are there, so if we receive a little more information, then we can have a better idea of ​​how we should change our behavior, which is important. do we have any information about whether these people took any precautions, in other words, whether these people were wearing masks or social distancing or not having mass or something, if we heard that most of the people were not having mass and not distancing and they got the virus, then most of us would say okay, so we're doing all the right things, so we should be protected, but let's say public health realizes that everyone was masked, they were doing it correctly, they weren't wearing a mask underneath from the chin, you know?

We'll have it down here, but let's say they used everything and did everything perfectly and still got the virus, then that would tell us that the public health recommendation is not enough, so receiving some of this information may cause us to change what we do because if I hear that people who didn't have a mask got sick, then that's a good reason for me to wear a mask, whereas now we just get a number and that number keeps going up and down, so we can't change our behavior to improve in virus prevention. Yeah, how concerning is it to you that we don't really know the source of community spread, particularly in Ontario, for example?

Yeah, so, if it was all, say, in the nursing home, then. That's great in the sense that we know where it's happening, therefore you can open up the rest of the economy, but until we know where it's happening and you start opening up the economy and now people are crashing into each other, we'll see the cases. increases so our concern is that the number that is right now is bouncing up and down in the 400 range and that could be increasing and therefore if it increases then we will have to lock things down again and That puts us backwards. that's what they saw in the Spanish flu, that's what we've seen in other countries, for example, South Korea just closed, you know, their nightlife area and it's taking people back a few steps because now they have afraid to open because they had these outbreaks, so we were able to figure out where things are happening right now, so as we start to open up, we could implement measures to get rid of those things, so if we know it's a grocery store, How can we reduce the risk? in the supermarket, if we know that it is at the pharmacy level, how do we do it?

In other words, we can take better steps. Well, I want to answer our viewers' questions. The first masks you mentioned, how? How often should I change my mask? Can a cloth steamer be used to disinfect certain surgical or cloth masks? Yeah, so if you're using the disposable mask that I've been using, for example, I'll just put a piece of Kleenex inside. I know this is crazy but I put the Kleenex inside so it doesn't get wet inside because the moment it gets wet or dirty then you have to get rid of it so if you keep changing that Kleenex in between then Yes you're just going out for an hour to go shopping it'll be fine remember most of the time with our masks we don't have the right virus because we're not around people so our mass really stops us. exhale our virus and then other people stop their viruses from getting close to us, so there probably aren't many viruses.

The recommendation is that if you hang it and let it dry with a little bit of sunlight then that is enough for it to be somewhat decontaminated if you really want to decontaminate it please don't put it in the microwave because it tastes surgical and there is a piece of metal in the top and microwave on the metal will produce sparks and that will cause a fire if you have one of the cloth masks, the cloth mask you just have to wash so if you throw it in with your normal clothes the detergent will kill any viruses that there and if you just want to wash it by hand, if you use soap, the soap will destroy. the virus too and then hang to dry so for the masked ones you just need to write one that you wash tonight and then you use the other one and this one will dry and you can rotate it there and the reason why they are important. it's because going forward it seems like the recommendation is that maybe we should use mass out because we may not be able to maintain that six foot distance and so mass can be very helpful for us as we move forward and that brings us to my next viewer question, should older people or people with health issues venture out in public even with a mask or should they stay at home?

Yes, if they have a lot of medical conditions, staying home is best, but if you go to the park where there are no people, then actually that's reasonable if you go to the backyard because we don't want to keep everyone confined, so we want them to do some exercise, that's why you hear all the health ministers saying you know. what we can actually go out if there's no chance of you running into other people and you can maintain that social distancing in terms of mass if the older person has a mask, we still want to maintain that six foot distance because remember the mask doesn't hurt you.

I will prevent myself from breathing in the virus because the holes in those homemade masks have quite a few holes in them and therefore if I inhale, I will now breathe in the virus. I guess if you want to think about it that way, I still would. I won't go into clothing places like elevators and things like that with other people that would still be a little bit of a risk for very sick elderly people, but if it's directly from your house going out and let's say to your backyard or around the street, let's get something.

Exercise to make sure your heart is still working well and all other medical conditions are being taken care of. Okay, I only have 30 seconds left and this last question is the hardest. What would Dr. Lynn say, what would you have done differently if you were a public health official? One thing: they did everything perfectly right, you know? Dr. Enrique Dr. Tam did a great job with the information they had, the only thing I think we should do is always assume the worst because when the World Health Organization came out, I remember everyone was waiting, would it go from person to person? ? transmission so they were keeping an eye on that human transmission and then once it happened oh my gosh it really happened and then they told us it was just droplets in other words people have to sneeze and cough and it's not from breathing Nothing like that.

So in some ways we were a little bit lacking on that, but now we're realizing that in close contact, you could read the virus and you could inhale it, so I think one thing we've learned from this is to establish the bar at the highest part, suppose it goes from human to human, suppose you can exhale and you can get up, so let's defend against that andthen as we find out more about the virus, we can go down and release some. of those criteria if we find out that it's just drops and so on, so I think if we just turn it up to the maximum and assume the worst and then turn it down, I think that in the next virus we would have a better chance of avoiding some of these horrible things because of the what we're going through right now, okay, I'll leave it there, thank you dr.

Lin, as always, appreciates his time, thanks to fascist medical columnist and family doctor Dr. Peter Lang Hi, I'm Vasu Capello's power in politics presenter. See more of our show by subscribing to the CBC News channel or click the link to watch another video.