‘System on the brink of collapse’: Doug Ford issues a 28-day stay-at-home order. But critics accuse the premier of sending mixed messages

Stay home — that’s an order. But it’s still considered safe for five people to gather outside.

With COVID-19 infections surging and the hospital “system on the brink of collapse,” Premier Doug Ford has declared another state of emergency and issued a 28-day “stay-at-home order” that takes effect on Thursday at 12:01 a.m.

The order, which will be enforced by police and bylaw officers across the province, decrees that people must remain home “with exceptions for essential purposes, such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy, accessing health-care services, for exercise or for essential work.”

Scofflaws face fines between $750 and $100,000 or up to one year in jail.

Schools, which had been set to reopen Jan. 25 in southern Ontario, will remain closed until Feb. 10 in Toronto, Peel, York, Hamilton, and Windsor-Essex. Child-care centres for preschoolers will remain open.

But Ford is being accused of sending contradictory signals, such as by allowing the gatherings of five people and non-essential retailers to stay open for curbside pickup, requiring workers to leave home and travel and be in contact with colleagues on the job as well as customers.

“Mixed messaging has compromised our response for many months now,” said Dr. Irfan Dhalla, an internist and vice-president at St. Michael’s Hospital, echoing concerns from New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath.

“People are going to be confused,” Horwath said Tuesday at Queen’s Park. “People can’t make heads or tails of what the government is doing.”

Ford’s office said there are good reasons for the exceptions, such as people who live alone and need companionship for their mental well-being.

“Anyone gathering outside is expected to adhere to physical distancing and are now strongly urged to wear a mask,” a statement said.

“Anyone who can work from home must now work from home. If you work at a retailer you obviously can’t work from home and can therefore go to work as necessary.”

Horwath said the new rules are full of “loopholes” and are short on help for workers like paid sick days so people can afford to stay home if feeling sick.

“I’m not seeing, to be honest, much of a difference between what we can do now and what we can do Thursday,” said epidemiologist Todd Coleman of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and a former public health official in London, Ont.

Ford insisted there are income support programs from the federal government to get families “over the hump” and into employment insurance benefits.

However, the government stumbled by not initially banning landlords from evicting tenants.

“Ontario is exploring all options available to put a temporary residential evictions moratorium in place, and will have more to say in the coming days,” Ford’s office said later Tuesday.

Taken together, the moves are aimed at curbing the spread of a virus that has killed more than 5,000 Ontarians since last March with predictions cases could hit 10,000 to 25,000 daily by mid-February if growth continues at the current rate of three to five per cent.

Deaths could hit 50 to 100 daily in the coming weeks.

Ontario reported just under 3,000 cases Tuesday, including another eight of the U.K variant that is 56 per cent more contagious and threatens to send infections, hospitalizations and deaths skyrocketing.

“It’s a matter of when it takes hold and how wide it spreads,” said a grim-faced Ford.

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“If we don’t move fast our hospital ICUs could be overwhelmed by the first week of February … by doing the right thing and staying home, you can stay safe and save lives.” Ford noted that at least one-third of Ontarians are ignoring pandemic precautions.

Intensive care units, now filled with more than 400 COVID-19 patients, could reach 500 within days and double that in February, further reducing cancer, cardiac and other surgeries already being cancelled. Fully 25 per cent of hospitals have no spare ICU beds and another 25 per cent have only one or two left. Ontario has just under 2,000 ICU beds.

“There will be choices about who will get the care they need, and who will not,” warned Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

Ontario’s status has gone from “precarious” before Christmas to “dangerous” now, he added, noting Scarborough hospitals have now admitted more COVID patients than they would flu patients in an entire “bad year” for influenza.

Forty per cent of nursing homes all across the province are in outbreak and second-wave deaths — over 1,100 so far — are on track to exceed the 1,800 from the first wave and could hit 2,600 by mid-February, according to the latest computer modelling presented by Brown.

Facing criticism for a lack of new aid for long-term care, Health Minister Christine Elliott said the promised “iron ring” of protection around nursing homes will now be the vaccines that have mostly been limited to Toronto, Peel, York and Windsor-Essex to date.

All non-essential retail stores — including hardware stores and alcohol retailers and any others allowed to offer curbside pickup — will be limited to operate between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.

The new restrictions do not apply to supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations, or restaurants and bars that remain open for takeout service only.

Ford promised an “inspection blitz” of big box stores to enforce reduced numbers of shoppers allowed inside at any one time and said “I’m not going to mess around.”

Non-essential construction is being restricted.

Health officials repeatedly stressed the risks of the U.K. variant of the virus. Should it spread widely, as it has in England, it could drop the time it takes daily infection levels to double to 10 days from the current rate of every 35 to 40 days, said Brown.

There now 14 such cases in Ontario. Five of these have been linked to travellers, but three remain a mystery. If no travel link is found, “that is evidence of community transmission,” said associate chief medical officer Dr. Barbara Yaffe.

Dhalla questioned why travel restrictions, such as limiting Ontarians to a 10-km radius from their homes, weren’t put in place given the unknowns surrounding the U.K. version of the virus to better contain any spread from one region to another.

“It’s now even more important that we restrict travel.”

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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