Ontario's 6th wave of COVID-19: How bad will it get?

Premier Doug Ford describes Ontario's current COVID-19 situation as "a little spike," but there are plenty of signs that the pandemic's sixth wave is on a trajectory to become far bigger than that.  

By every available measure — hospitalizations, officially confirmed cases and the presence of the virus in sewage — Ontario's latest wave of COVID-19 infections is showing exponential growth. 

Estimates from the viral count in wastewater suggest about 100,000 people are now getting infected daily in Ontario, according to the COVID-19 Science Advisory Table. That is a faster infection rate than at any previous time in the pandemic. 

All of this leaves no doubt that Ontario is in a sixth wave, even though the province's Chief Medical Health Officer Dr Kieran Moore has yet to declare it officially. Moore hasn't held a news conference or done any media interviews in four weeks, despite repeated requests from a range of media outlets, including CBC News.  

Still, plenty of unknowns remain about Ontario's sixth wave: What kind of impact is it having? How much bigger will it get? What should the province do about it?

The Ford government's approach to that last question right now is to stay the course after lifting most COVID-19 public measures last month.

"There's no cause for panic," Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said Wednesday when asked about the COVID-19 situation at an unrelated news conference. "This is something that we are sure we're going to be able to get through."

At the same news conference, Ford was asked if he's downplaying the significance of the current wave for political reasons, with Ontario's election campaign due to begin in four weeks.

"I'm not downplaying it," Ford responded. "But let's put this into perspective. We have still one of the lowest cases per capita of hospitalizations in the country."

Ford and Elliott are repeatedly aiming to reassure Ontarians that hospital bed capacity, high vaccination rates and the availability of antiviral medication mean the province's heath system can cope with the current wave.

It's a message that doesn't sit well with those who believe "hospitals aren't overrun" is a low bar for success, including Dr. Amit Arya, a palliative care physician who works in hospitals and long-term care homes in the Toronto area

"Simply just ignoring COVID-19 and pretending that it doesn't exist and dropping all public health protections is the wrong message at this point in time," Arya said in an interview. 

"Many people, including even some of my own friends and family, are believing this message and sort of interpreting this to say that the pandemic is over," Arya added. 

Anthony Dale, the president of the Ontario Hospital Association, says Elliott's call not to panic is appropriate, but adds a caveat.