Earlier today, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center President and CEO Avi Benlolo sat down with Doctors4Wiesenthal co-chairs Dr. Mark Korman and Dr. Philip Solomon to discuss the current coronavirus situation in Ontario, including their experiences on the frontlines and insight into the current and long-term impact of the pandemic on the health care system.

While the number of cases appears to be increasing in Ontario, Dr. Korman - who has worked on the frontlines at local COVID-19 assessment centres - said there has been increased testing and the province is seeing the curve bending down.

“What we’ve seen throughout the course of this is that we haven’t really known how many cases there actually are out in the community because testing was not as available,” said Dr. Korman. “But as we’ve seen the province ramp up from a few thousand tests a day to ten thousand a few days ago to fourteen to sixteen thousand now, we are seeing increased detection in the community.”

Dr. Solomon expects long-term effects on the health care system.

“In the Ontario health care system we see such high volume of traffic in all fields of medicine,” said Dr. Solomon. “With something like a pandemic, it’s going to add more complexity to managing that. Hopefully we can create some positive things in the health care system by improving access, reducing redundancies and waste in the system as well while providing good quality of care.”