As Canada reopens, is it headed for a U.S.-style crisis? One official says she lost sleep over reopening bars. We weigh the evidence so far, including a key statistic that, according to public-health experts, is the metric to watch.
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A recurring fear looms over newly reopened bars and restaurants, lurking over crowded aisles, clinking glasses and face-to-face banter enlivened by alcohol.
Are we sleepwalking toward an American-style coronavirus crisis?
As Canadian establishments reopen, it’s a worry voiced even by some people with a financial stake in the hospitality business.
Two Montreal restaurateurs said they were aghast at behaviour they witnessed after businesses resumed operating several weeks ago.
“Frustrated. Angry. Disheartened,” is how Stephen Leslie, owner of Tavern on the Square and Monkland Tavern, describes his reaction to seeing other establishments defy safety guidelines, with too many tables and too little PPE for staff.
“You just can’t help but think that what’s going on to the south of us — Texas, Florida — how they’ve been forced to re-close is going to happen to us here if we don’t follow the rules.”
Ilene Polansky, owner of Montreal restaurant Maestro SVP, said disrespectful clients littered; stumbled into her; did not distance; refused to wash their hands; and stormed off when she declined to group tables together.
“They said, ‘One-star review for you. We’re never coming [back] here,'” Polansky recalled.
“It’s sad that I have to tell people to follow the rules.”
Now Montreal has long lineups for testing, with infections rising and dozens of cases linked to bars, prompting new provincial guidelines.
Alberta faced 41 new cases tied to outbreaks at four restaurants in Edmonton late last month. British Columbia has seen exposure to COVID-19 in bars, nightclubs and strip clubs since reopening. Ontario reopened bars and restaurants in much of the province Friday as it moves into Stage 3.
The post-reopening spikes inevitably raise questions about whether Canada is simply a few weeks behind a neighbour that reopened sooner.
In the U.S., a new wave of the virus is battering virtually every region, with cases rising in most states; record spikes in several of them; and hospital bed shortages in Florida and elsewhere.
To gauge whether the early signs in Canada point to a scenario similar to the one flaring up through the U.S., CBC News consulted three infectious disease experts, four public health officials, and national, state and provincial data.
One of Canada’s best-known public health experts said she lost sleep over the decision to reopen bars in B.C. — but she’s now confident in their ability to clamp down on outbreaks quickly before they spiral out of control.
“We’ve had our restaurants and bars open for the last month now, and we haven’t had major outbreaks,” Dr. Bonnie Henry said in an interview with CBC News. “It’s not been perfect, and we’ve had to revise things.”
Henry said B.C. reopened establishments in a “manageable” way that allowed people to socialize safely, with smaller capacities, strict physical distancing and hygiene protocols, and a COVID-19 safety plan in place.
“The first thing people said when we had the exposure event in a couple of the nightclubs in Vancouver was, ‘Oh, shut them down.’ But that doesn’t help,” she said, adding officials worked with the industry to minimize risk to patrons and staff.
“It just drives people underground, where we won’t hear about cases because they’re afraid to talk about it.”
‘You can’t eat and drink with a mask on’
When trouble hit the United States, it initially struck with stealth — as a series of anecdotes, unheeded warnings, contradictory news headlines, and videos of safety guidelines being ignored.
Within days the headlines took an unambiguously bleaker turn. Arizona reported its highest one-day increase in cases. Then the cases kept growing, and growing, then doubling, tripling, quadrupling.
Now Canada is also reopening what experts describe as some of the highest-risk environments — bars and restaurants.
People are indoors, in close contact, sharing food and drinking while proven infection-control measures — like physical distancing, hand hygiene and mask wearing — are also much harder to maintain.
“You can’t eat and drink with a mask on,” said Dr. Matthew Oughton, an infectious disease specialist at the Jewish