'Lockdown isn't really the way to go,' York Region's top public health doctor says

TORONTO -- York Region’s medical officer of health said a hard three-week lockdown suggested by the director of Ontario’s science advisory table “would not work” for York Region and says he is “arguing very much against” this course of action.

This week, Dr. Peter Juni, the director of Ontario’s science advisory table, called for a three-week lockdown in Ontario’s COVID-19 hotspots in the Golden Horseshoe to help prevent the explosive growth in cases that some experts believe is likely to occur in the next few weeks due to the prevalence of more transmissible variants of concern.

Juni made the comment following the publication of new data, which estimated that each person with a variant case is now infecting 1.35 other people. To put that number in context, Ontario as a whole hasn’t had a reproductive number that high since April of last year.

But Dr. Karim Kurji, York Region’s top public health doctor, told CTV News on Thursday that those type of broad measures “wouldn't necessarily cause any benefit” and the harm a lockdown would cause to residents in his region would likely be “much greater.”

“A lockdown isn't really the way to go. It was the best way to go when we knew no better but now I would suggest targeted interventions,” Kurji said.

York Region has been in the red zone of the province’s tiered reopening framework for several weeks, which has allowed restaurants to resume indoor dining and gyms to reopen with reduced capacity. Small indoor gatherings are also permitted in the red zone.

Kurji said while the B.1.1.7 COVID-19 variant, which was first discovered in the United Kingdom, is undoubtedly the dominant strain in the province, the situation appears to be under control in his region.

“We continue to have excellent case and contact management with a view to try to temper the growth of the variants,” he said.

According to data released by the province, York Region reported 176 new cases of COVID-19 and the rolling seven-day average of new cases now sits at 139, up from 113 one week ago.

There are currently about 136 people with COVID-19 in hospital across the region.

“We don't really believe in the ability of lockdowns as being very good instruments. They are kind of blunt instruments,” Kurji said Thursday.

“What we have is the sweet spot in York Region, which is really red zone with additional measures being introduced as necessary. Specific targeted ones. We've got to remember that the mental health consequences are bad.”

But Dr. Juni said that not only would an “early and hard lockdown” be beneficial, if we implement it now, it could reduce the length of a required lockdown from months to weeks.

In an interview with CTV News on Thursday, he said the variants of concern are posing a big problem for the Golden Horseshoe.

“If we want to get them (variants) under control and gain just a little bit of time so that the vaccine can kick in... then we just need to do things slightly differently,” Juni said.

“If we just are smart now and just change our attitude and go back to the way we locked down a year ago one more time and just focus on the areas that actually are in trouble right now... then we probably can get things under control again. And we are just talking about a few weeks.”

Kurji rejected the call for a lockdown, saying the red zone is already “very restrictive” and noted that his goal is to “arrive at a balancing point.”

“Definitely do your physical distancing, wear your masks, be very vigilant, keep two metres away, don't go out much if you can avoid it. Like we are not suggesting that we are out of the woods,” he said.

“I think people need hope now and we hope that through the vaccination strategy being rolled out we are giving them hope. We are giving them a little bit of breathing space right now.”

Ryan Imgrund, a biostatistician who has been tracking COVID-19 numbers, told CP24 earlier this week that it would be a mistake to think that vaccinations might hold off a rising tide of infections at this point.

“We have here in Ontario fully vaccinated two per cent of the population. That's one in 50 people who have been vaccinated, roughly,” he said. “One of 50 people have actually ever had COVID-19. That is not removing a significant population.”