The third time is not a charm when it comes to provincially-mandated lockdowns. Residents, business owners, and the mayor of Collingwood aren't taking this lockdown order sitting down.
The region has entered grey-lockdown restrictions this morning for an as-yet undetermined amount of time, and there are residents and business owners mounting opposition to the move.
In particular, Collingwood business owners can look to their western neighbours in The Blue Mountains operating in a green zone, which applies the least amount of restrictions. Grey Bruce Health Unit entered green zone this morning.
The mayor of Collingwood has voiced his own criticism of the decision.
“It is extremely unfortunate and unfair to local businesses that Blue Mountain retail outlets, restaurants, coffee shops and bars can operate under relaxed green zone designation while five minutes away, Collingwood’s businesses are forced to severely cut back operations or close in accordance with strict grey-lockdown regulations,” said Saunderson in a statement he issued via his Facebook page.
Council is meeting today at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the lockdown.
“We will consider all options including asking the province to reconsider this decision, to divide the health unit into sub-regions, and lobby the provincial government for additional financial assistance along with working with our local businesses and residents to expand the ‘Support Local’ campaign,” said Saunderson.
The decision to move any region to any colour-coded restriction zone within the provincial COVID-19 Response Framework is provincial, but Ontario health authorities take direction from regional medical officers of health.
In Simcoe-Muskoka’s case, Dr. Charles Gardner did ask the province to move the region into lockdown.
Yesterday, he hosted a media conference live-streamed on Facebook, where he addressed the backlash he was getting from local business owners and the impact another lockdown will have on people’s livelihood, wellbeing, and their businesses.
“I sincerely wish we were not in this level of restriction,” said Gardner in a news release from the health unit.
He said his concern is over the spread of the B.1.1.7 COVID variant strain in Simcoe and Muskoka workplaces, long-tern care facilities, a child care facility, and an apartment building.
“Countries that have experienced high numbers of the variants of concern have then experienced a third wave of COVID-19 and we need to act early to prevent that from happening here,” said Gardner.
The region did see a 30 per cent increase in cases for the week of Feb. 14-20 with 275 cases reported, 12 hospitalizations, and eight deaths. During the week of Feb. 21 to Feb. 25, the health unit reported 169 cases, four hospitalizations and two deaths. However, not all the data from last week has been reported yet.
According to the health unit, more than 600 cases in the region have been associated with variant outbreaks. There have been 184 confirmed cases of the B.1.1.7 variant and another 290 cases have screened positive.
Last week, more than 60 per cent of the local COVID-19 positive cases sent for further testing screened positive for a variant strain of COVID.
The health unit has referred to this lockdown as a “short term measure” and an “emergency brake” meant to help stop the spread of the virus as well as protect public health and health system capacity in the regions.
The health unit has been struggling with case and contact management. In October, Gardner announced the tracers were no longer able to reach out to close contacts for many of the confirmed cases, and were relying on those who test positive to reach out to their own close contacts. As of last week, the health unit’s tracers were reaching about 61.5 per cent of those who tested positive for COVID-19 within 24 hours of receiving notice of the positive result.
A petition circulating via change.org calls on authorities to reverse the lockdown decision. It has gathered more than 18,000 signatures.
The petition also focuses on local, small business owners, stating the owners have “gone above and beyond” and “we’ve been more than compliant for longer than most can bare while we continue to suffer devastating consequence.”
“Enough is enough,” states the petition.
Fearless Vanity Hair Studio, which is located in Collingwood, shared a post to Facebook stating its employees are trained in infection control and have been operating with red zone restrictions even when the region was under lower level restrictions.
"Time to open my salon and for good," stated the post.
9Round Fitness is new to Collingwood and was scheduled to host an open house on Tuesday (March 2). It was cancelled because of the lockdown. The gym argued exercise should be considered an essential service.
"This is a very frustrating time, and it has been incredibly difficult on small businesses, we cannot survive like this!" stated a post by the fitness centre on Facebook. "We are staying positive through this, but we need to take action."
Among the claims by the mayor, the petition and other business owners is a suggestion the numbers “don’t add up” to a lockdown. The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit has addressed that criticism.
There are three indicators included in the province’s COVID-19 response plan meant to inform the province’s decisions about where to place each of the 34 health units within the colour-coded zones.
They are epidemiology, hospital and ICU capacity, and public health capacity for case and contact management.
Since the health unit hasn’t processed all the case data from Feb. 22-26, the status of all three indicators listed on the health unit site is as of Feb. 20. So as of last week, two of the three indicators were in line with red zone levels. According to the health unit, hospital and ICUs in the region still have some capacity open (about 14 per cent of available capacity).
The health unit will be posting an update later today to include more cases reported to the health unit last week.
There are no specific levels for grey zone restrictions listed in the province’s framework other than “adverse trends after entering red” with an increase in case incidence and/or a risk of the hospital and ICU capacity being overwhelmed, and/or case and contact management by the health unit at risk of being overwhelmed.
According to the news release by the health unit, active outbreaks have been trending back up since mid-February, with eight more outbreaks on Feb. 26 than on Feb. 20. There are nine active workplace outbreaks linked to a variant strain.
This lockdown is different from the previous province-wide shutdown as far as restrictions, and also different from the lockdowns across the province last spring.
The businesses that were open in the red zone, but are required to close under lockdown restrictions include personal care services and fitness, recreation, and sports centres. Restaurants are limited to take away only. Cannabis stores may only offer curbside pickup and delivery.
The health unit has reported two outbreaks at fitness, sports, and rec facilities in the region with eight total cases linked to those outbreaks. There was also an outbreak at a personal service setting (a hair salon) resulting in four cases.
Churches, too, must stop meeting in person (up to 10 people can meet for a religious service, rite, or ceremony) under the grey-lockdown restrictions, whereas they were permitted to have up to 30 per cent of the building’s capacity indoors under the red restrictions.
To date, the health unit has reported two outbreaks associated with religious organizations, which led to 14 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Schools remain open. The health unit has reported 22 outbreaks at schools in the region, including 77 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
The duration of the lockdown for the region has not been announced.
Instead, the health unit has said Dr. Gardner will monitor the health data so he can advise the province to lift the restrictions as soon as “it is safe to do so.”
