The Ontario Science Table announced that COVID-19 hospitalizations are likely to surpass 3,000 by May.
The news comes more than a month after mask precautions and other COVID-19 mandates were dropped as Ontario moved into the next phase of reopening the province.
The table evaluates and reports on emerging evidence relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic shared the new modelling earlier this week.
Earlier this week, Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, told reporters the increase in numbers is not a surprise.
Numbers will continue to rise with less and less people taking cautionary measures and fewer controls of people’s movements, he said.
Prior to Ontario lifting mask mandates, a modeling released by the Science Table last month estimated that by May, there would be about 800 COVID-19 patients in hospital and 300 in ICU.
The table released charted data and said said that precautionary measures like masking in indoor spaces would help reduce the spreading of the virus.
The latest provincial COVID-19 statistics, as of April 23, show 3,820 new cases with a seven-day average of 2.927. The actual number is suspected to be 10 times that. Hospitalizations increased by 93 to 1,684 and the number of ICU patients dropped by two to 212.
Alana Wilson, who has family that are severely immunocompromised, said the rise in numbers is frightening.
“I think Ontario dropping mask mandates occurred way too quickly,” she said. “For those of us who have people around us who are immunocompromised, the transition has been very anxious especially because most people couldn’t wait to get rid of their masks.”
The rise is cases leaves some Ontarians wondering if mandates may be reinstated as a precautionary measure.
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