Ontario’s latest coronavirus modelling numbers to be revealed Monday, Doug Ford says

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the latest modelling numbers on COVID-19 will be shown to Ontarians on Monday.

Ford told reporters at a press conference at Queen’s Park on Friday that he was briefed the previous night on projections.

“We’ve asked our COVID-19 command table to put the modelling out for the public,” Ford said. “They said they’d be able to do it on Monday, and get it prepared over the weekend.”

On April 3, the province first revealed projection numbers that Ontario could see 80,000 cases and just under 1,600 deaths by the end of April, if the current measures in place are upheld.

They also said the final tally for deaths by the end of the pandemic, with public measures in place, was projected to be roughly 3,000 to 15,000 for the province with the current modelling system.

More grimly, the data also indicated that Ontario would have seen 300,000 cases of COVID-19 and 6,000 deaths by the end of the month if there was no government action or intervention.

1:24 Ontario government releases COVID-19 modelling data

“We had to prepare for the worse case scenario,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said responding to the April 3 modelling numbers and where Ontario is now.

“It’s really because of the efforts of the people of Ontario, all 14.5 million people, practising physical distancing, staying at home, self-isolating within as required for 14 days when coming from another jurisdiction. All of that has made a difference, all of that has saved thousands of lives and I’m very, very grateful to the people of Ontario for doing that,” Elliott continued.

“We need to continue with this, but it is because of all of those efforts that we are in a situation where our hospitals can deal with the number of people coming in. And now what we need to do, is work on long-term care and make sure that very vulnerable group of people is protected.”

Over the weekend, Ford warned returning to normal without a vaccine for the virus “means putting lives at risk.”

Ford made the remarks as his government announced $20 million in funding for medical research in fighting COVID-19.

He said he wants to ensure that any partial reopening would not result in a second wave of cases.

“It was so, so difficult to shut down the economy. In my opinion, it’s going to be twice as difficult to try to open this up and do it methodically,” Ford said on Saturday.

As of Monday , Ontario reported 11,184 cases of the virus with 584 deaths.

— With files from Ryan Rocca.