Toronto's Top Doctor Says For The First Time In Months We Have An Advantage Over COVID-19

The city's top doctor delivered some good news about the state of COVID-19 in Toronto at a press conference on Thursday. 

Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city's medical officer of health, told reporters that Toronto's "R Number" is below 1 — which means that each new COVID-19 case in the city is resulting in less than one additional infection. 

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0.86 Toronto's current R Number

The "R Number" is the Effective Reproductive Number, which is the number of people who will theoretically get infected from a single positive case of COVID-19.

The number changes based on how much the virus is moving around — so if the number is higher, that means that more people are getting infected.

Toronto's R Number is now 0.86 — the first time it's been below 1 in months — which means that the virus is not spreading as much as before.

"Practically speaking, it means we have a slight advantage over the virus, rather than the virus having the advantage over us," Dr. de Villa said at the press conference.

But Dr. de Villa also said Torontonians should have "a great deal of caution," despite the positive sign, especially with new virus variants that are more transmissible.

On Tuesday, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Williams said the province would need to see around 1,000 new cases a day before the lockdown could be lifted.

On Thursday, Ontario reported a daily increase of 2,632 COVID-19 cases in the province.