May 4: Lots of good, hopeful news

The first time ever, Ontario reported more COVID-19 deaths than Quebec, but it’s not all bad news.

Despite the rise of deaths in Ontario, we’re doing very well

I’ll summarize a series of good news:

• Quebec reported fewer deaths than they have on average over the past 20 days
• Ontario reported fewer than 400 new cases (371 to be precise). Just 10 days ago, this number was 640.
• Ontario’s daily testing capacity is now at 16,000, well above the level we were at not too long ago (yes, still not high enough but let’s focus on the improvement)
• Ontario has fewer patients hospitalized: 984 patients (down by 26) hospitalized, with 225 patients in an ICU (down by 7) and 175 patients in ICUs on a ventilator (up by 1)
• Ontario is probably past its peak:

That, right there, is a flattened curve!

Here’s another way of looking at the daily deaths in Ontario, the increase now corresponds with higher active cases not too long ago. The number of deaths is a trailing metric.

According to the provincial data released Monday, there are currently 212 COVID-19 outbreaks at long-term care homes. That continues to be a challenge for Ontario and shows up in our data. However, that problem is contained in longterm care homes and isn’t impacted by the somewhat re-opening of the economy.

For instance, Quebec reported 75 deaths, out of which 72 were in longterm care homes.

Looking at the daily reported cases in Quebec, it is too early to predict if Quebec is past the peak.

It’s too early to tell whether Quebec’s dip in new cases is a part of their regular pattern or a clear falling of new cases

As a result of the above, the total deaths in Canada so far is following the model:

We’re very close to the predicted number for today

I know some people have been frustrated that the daily new deaths in Canada isn’t dropping. However, it’s not rising either, and (believe it or not) is a good indication that the outbreaks are limited:

We’re reporting roughly same number of deaths every day

Why stop with good news in Canada!

Despite the foolishness of some Republication Legislatures (eg: Michigan) and some American public, the steadfastness of most State Governors have pushed on with their Emergency Orders, helping flatten their curve as well:

All in all, we’re doing well.

We are doing well enough that people have started talking about how it was “just like flu” (pretty much as we predicted they would if we succeeded. We’re doing so well that hospitals all over Canada have extra capacity when we feared they’d be overrun. We’re doing so well that I can see us reducing some restrictions in the coming weeks.