Best Case COVID-19 Projection For Ontario: 1,600 Deaths In April
TORONTO — If Ontario continues on its current trajectory with the physical distancing measures in place, the province will see 80,000 cases of COVID-19 and 1,600 deaths by the end of April.
Over the course of the pandemic, which may last up to two years, between 3,000 and 15,000 people in Ontario could die from COVID-19, according to projections released by provincial public health officials on Friday.
“If we follow the rules, if we do our best to socially distance, if we look after the elderly and the vulnerable in our society, we can get within that range. And we can strive to get as low as possible within that range,” said Dr. Peter Donnelly, president and CEO of Public Health Ontario, at a media briefing.
We are in a full-out battle.Ontario Premier Doug Ford
Donnelly warned the province is modelling “a brand new viral disease” and therefore their numbers are “very inexact.”
Premier Doug Ford — who first saw the numbers Thursday — broke down what 1,600 deaths from COVID-19 by the end of April would look like: “That’s 50 a day, or two people every hour. Each one could be your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, your grandparents or a friend. This virus could hit any one of [us] because this is a terrible virus that doesn’t discriminate. We are in a full-out battle.”
Watch: Canadian cities gear up for worst-case scenario of COVID-19. Story continues below.
If Canada’s governments had not implemented any physical distancing measures, the models show there could’ve been 300,000 cases of COVID-19 and 6,000 deaths by the end of April, and 100,000 deaths in total in Ontario alone, Donnelly said.
“Thankfully, that is not the position that we are in because of the very detailed actions ... which have been taken in response to emerging science,” said Donnelly. “We believe that if we do all that we can we can get a much better end result for the province.”
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