{"id":76,"date":"2021-03-17T20:20:24","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T00:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/?p=76"},"modified":"2021-03-18T07:55:45","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T11:55:45","slug":"ontario-now-in-third-wave-of-covid-19-says-ontario-hospital-association","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/2021\/03\/17\/ontario-now-in-third-wave-of-covid-19-says-ontario-hospital-association\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario now in third wave of COVID-19 says Ontario Hospital Association"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Daniel Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ontario Hospital Association said on Twitter<\/a> that the province is now experiencing a third wave of COVID-19 infections, citing increases in variants and patients in intensive care.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The determination was made using data from Ontario\u2019s COVID-19 Science Advisory<\/a> <\/a>Table<\/a>, which shows that as of Monday an estimated 49 per cent of new cases were variants. The Ontario Hospital Association also said that ICU numbers were approaching 350.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStrong adherence to public health measures is urgently needed to prevent overwhelming hospitals,\u201d said the Ontario Hospital Association in the Twitter post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
(SCIENCE TABLE: COVID ADVISORY FOR ONTARIO)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As of March 13, the R(t) <\/a>value<\/a>, measuring the speed of transmission, was 1.35 for new variants and 0.90 for the initial virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recent study<\/a> published by a journal named Nature indicated that the new COVID-19 variant, specifically the B.1.1.7 or U.K. variant, was on average 55 per cent more lethal than the original virus. This study indicated that the variant translates into an increased mortality risk for a 55 to 69-year-old male from 0.6 per cent to 0.9 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Andrea Bennett\/Ryerson News)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 The Ontario government recently launched a provincial booking portal<\/a> and customer service desk for COVID-19 vaccines. The portal went live on Monday and now accepts appointment bookings for people born in 1941 or earlier to get vaccinated at a mass immunization clinic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The province has administered over 1.1 million vaccine doses, including over 127,000 doses to long-term care residents. Currently, over 285,000 Ontario residents are fully vaccinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto\u2019s medical officer of health, said at a press conference<\/a> that a decision will be made this week as to how the city will fit into Ontario\u2019s COVID-19 framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe should all be concerned by what we\u2019re seeing, both here in Toronto and when we look around the world,\u201d said de Villa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dr. de Villa said on Wednesday that Toronto is not ready to enter the red zone, due to increased presence of COVID-19 variants. (CITYNEWS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The medical officer said she is specifically concerned with an increase in the city\u2019s seven-day moving average, which increased from 354 to 420 from March 9 to March 15. Additionally, de Villa said that COVID-19 variants have triggered a third wave in parts of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anonymous cell phone data, said de Villa, also shows that Toronto residents are spending less time at home and travelling to areas with fewer restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pandemic is not over,\u201d said de Villa. \u201cWe are nearing the finish line, but we are not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Daniel Johnson The Ontario Hospital Association said on Twitter that the province is now experiencing a third wave of COVID-19 infections, citing increases in variants and patients in intensive care. The determination was made using data from Ontario\u2019s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, which shows that as of Monday an estimated 49 per cent of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":84,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jn8201-winter-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}