TORONTO -- Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the COVID-19 curve is trending down amid a second wave of the disease across the province despite the seven-day trend actually creeping up.
Ford made the remarks during his daily COVID-19 briefing at Queen's Park on Wednesday.
"I truly believe everyone in Ontario, all 14.5 milion people, are doing a great job and Dr. Brown will be out tomorrow and putting out information that we see the curve going down, which is great news and I give all the credit to the people out there in Ontario but we can’t let our guard down," Ford said during the news conference.
Ford hinted that the Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown is expected to release new data tomorrow on COVID-19 trends in the province.
The last time Brown appeared at a provincial COVID-19 briefing was last month when the government announced it’s modelling data for October, forecasting that the province could see more than 1,000 new cases daily of the virus by mid-October.
And the province did meet that grim milestone last Sunday when 1,042 new infections were logged, setting a record-high since the pandemic began in March.
Daily case counts have been lower since then with 851 new cases on Monday, 827 on Tuesday and 834 on Wednesday.
But the seven-day rolling average continues to creep upwards and now stands at 885 compared to 753 a week ago.
When asked further about "the curve going down," Ford said it's not showing signs of flattening just yet.
"I wouldn’t go as far as flattening but we see it going in the right direction and that's really positive. It's putting me in a good mood today and I’m always in a good mood but today it just tells me that people are listening," he said.
Earlier this month, the provincial government ordered the COVID-19 hot spots of Toronto, Peel and Ottawa to revert back to a modified Stage 2 to slow the spread of infections, closing gyms, theatres, casinos and indoor dining for at least 28 days.
A week later, the government imposed the same stricter measures on York Region.
With a record-setting weekend of new cases, many health officials said that may be a result from Thanksgiving gatherings and that this week and next week will be telling as to where cases are headed in the province.
Ford added that just because the data appears to be heading in the right direction it's too soon for the province to let its guard down.
"Things are looking really positive so far, but I’ve said that before and it scares you because it comes back and bites you in the butt real quick if we don't follow it up."
