Health experts advising the Ontario government say aggressive vaccination and maintaining a stay-at-home order will help the province avoid a third wave and another lockdown.

“Cases are down, hospitalizations are down, positivity rates are down and this is good news but the challenge is the growth of the new variants,” said Dr. Steini Brown. “These new variants, particularly B117 are likely between 5 and 10 percent of cases right now across the province and that’s up substantially from what we were seeing at the beginning of last month.”

In delivering new COVID projections, Dr. Brown says the variants will likely grow in late February which will lead to more ICU admissions.

He adds that focusing vaccination efforts on long-term care homes has started to pay off, with a declining number of daily deaths in homes. And the number of outbreaks in long term care has dropped to 194.

Dr. Brown says if we stick with public health measures and aggressive vaccinations, we can avoid a third wave and hope for a late spring and summer that is safer and more open.