Ontario's COVID-19 rates lower than expected due to public health measures: experts

Ontario's daily COVID-19 case counts are lower than what many experts had expected by now, and while they point to a number of factors for the relative relief, they say now is not the time to ease up on those measures.

For much of the summer, the province's top doctor warned of a September surge, followed by a bleak fall and winter. That has not materialized - yet - as the daily case counts remain under 1,000 and the graph of Ontario's seven-day average roughly shows a plateau since the beginning of September.

That's well under the worst-case scenario in Ontario's most recent modelling, which showed about 4,000 daily cases by now. Reality is more in line with the best-case scenario, in which cases would have steadily fallen since Sept. 1.

Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease physician at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, said hospitalizations and ICU admissions are also stable even without more restrictions being introduced - noting the proof-of-vaccination system only took effect a few days ago.

"There is a little bit of cautious optimism in that with society being more open, kids back to school, all of the things that we...would have concerns about leading to escalating transmission, we're not seeing," he said.