Next summer before fans pack arenas for sporting events and concerts: Toronto-area doctor

Charting COVID-19 in Ontario Dr. Jennifer Kwan speaks with CTV's Graham Richardson on her daily tracking of Ontario's ICU and ventilator capacity.

OTTAWA — A Toronto-area doctor says physical distancing measures could be relaxed late this summer, but it may be more than a year before fans can pack sports arenas and concert venues.

Dr. Jennifer Kwan has been charting the Ontario cases of COVID-19 and whether the curve is flattening.

Dr. Kwan told CTV News at Noon that based on the latest COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and ICU cases, things have been looking encouraging over the past couple of days.

“The numbers seem to be stabilizing. That being said, I don’t think we can safely say we’re flattening the curve yet.”

Dr. Kwan says the key is to minimize the number of COVID-19 cases in hospital to avoid overwhelming the health care system.

CTV News at Noon anchor Graham Richardson asked Dr. Kwan about when any sense of normalcy can return to society.

“I think that we can get back to normal in maybe about three to six months. Not our normal that we’re used to, but kind of our new ongoing normal until the vaccines are created.”

Dr. Kwan says the three to six month timeline is dependent on Canadians continuing to practice physical distancing, widespread testing to control and prevent any COVID-19 outbreaks and universal masking.

“Masks are going to become more and more commonplace. I think there’s going to be a requirement for masks to do anything in public where you might have to interact with others,” said Dr. Kwan.

When asked about the future of sporting events and concerts with large crowds, Dr. Kwan says smaller crowds may be allowed for some events by the end of summer, with 10 to 20 people.

“For concerts that have thousands of people, sports games, I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. Maybe I would say even next summer, unless we can really deploy the test to the point where every single person going to these kind of events can be tested.”