From: brewnoser2@gmail.com   
      
   CBC News · Posted: Mar 16, 2021   
      
   Ontario sees 1,074 new COVID-19 cases as expert advisory group says 3rd wave   
   underway   
      
   Variants of concern now account for more than half all of new cases in the   
   province   
      
   Ontario reported another 1,074 cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, as an expert   
   group advising the government on its pandemic response said that the province   
   has entered a third wave fueled by variants of concern.   
      
   The new cases include 313 in Toronto, 199 in Peel Region and 101 in York   
   Region.   
      
   They come as labs completed 28,526 tests for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes   
   the illness, and logged a positivity rate of 4.5 per cent, the highest since   
   Feb. 2.   
      
   Ontario's COVID-19 science advisory table said this morning that variants of   
   concern — especially B117, which was first identified in the United Kingdom   
   — now account for more than half of all new cases province-wide.   
      
   Further, the group said that nearly two-thirds of the province's 34 public   
   health units are seeing effective reproductive numbers above one. In other   
   words, the rate of new infections is growing in those areas.   
      
   The reproductive number for variants specifically is currently 1.38, well   
   above the threshold for moving a particular health unit to the red "control"   
   tier of Ontario's restrictions system.   
      
   Dr. Peter Jüni, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of   
   Toronto and scientific director of the advisory table, said that the problem   
   is largely concentrated within the Golden Horseshoe, which runs from Niagara   
   Region in the west    
   around the Lake Ontario to Simcoe in the east.   
      
   Jüni said he believes it is "inevitable" that the entire Golden Horseshoe   
   move into the grey lockdown tier for a period.   
      
   "I hate to say it, I hate lockdowns as much as everybody else does," he told   
   CBC News Network. "We're heading for a disaster if we now just say, 'Okay open   
   up right now, all will be fine.' It won't. That is just wishful thinking."   
      
   Just a "few weeks" is all that would be needed to help limit the spread of   
   variants as more people are vaccinated.   
      
   "It is a race against time, the new variants against vaccines but right now   
   the new variants are winning," he added.   
      
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