City's COVID-19 park enforcement blitz to continue

Torontosun.com
April 9, 2020
Bryan Passifiume

After a weekend --and subsequent days --of continuous and sometimes blatant disregard of social distancing rules, the city says it will continue an ongoing enforcement blitz in Toronto.

Speaking at the city’s daily COVID-19 press briefing, Toronto Mayor John Tory said people are still using city-owned park amenities, despite the threat of hefty fines.

“While the parks themselves are not closed, and people are free to walk through them, people need to know that it is our very strong preference and advice … that they should stay home,” Tory said.

“We’ve closed playgrounds and other park amenities not because we wanted to, but to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus in our community.

“This is about saving lives.”

Protective equipment on the way for doctors and nurses
Some of the infractions observed by officers include crowds of golfers hitting the links at the Don Valley Golf Course --even though the course wasn’t scheduled to open for the season until next week.

Officers also broke up cricket and baseball games at Cedarvale park, as well as found people using the closed off-leash dog parks, and on Tuesday evening discovered two separate fires overnight at Humber Bay Park.

Late last month, Toronto banned use of amenities inside city-owned parks, including playgrounds, sports fields, benches, skate parks and greenhouses.

Associated city-owned parking lots are also closed.

Officers on Monday handed out 12 tickets for amenities-related offences, the most in a single day since the crisis began.

On Monday, officers witnessed residents playing ball hockey at Sorauren Park Town Square in Parkdale, soccer and basketball games at the Regent Park Athletic Grounds, and a large 40-person gathering at the East York Skate Park.

Toronto added 121 new COVID-19 cases between Tuesday and Wednesday, bringing the total to 1,570.

Fourteen new cases were admitted to city hospitals, and eight more patients are receiving intensive care.

Seven more people died overnight, putting the total number of deaths in Toronto at 49.

Two new cases are reported as recovered from COVID-19, 84 in all.

To date, 12 physicians, 13 nurses and 6 other healthcare workers have tested positive.

Despite the grim situation within the city’s Seven Oaks Long Term Care home, Dr. Eileen de Villa said positive effects from stringent outbreak measures are starting to be seen as the rate of new infections slows.

45 of the home’s 249 residents are tested positive, and 16 deaths are reported connected with COVID-19 --with many more expected among those infected, Dr. de Villa said.

Four additional deaths occurred during the outbreak that don’t appear to be coronavirus-related.

As well, 13 staff members are also infected.

In measures meant to aid the city’s homeless, capacity at Seaton House was reduced by 40 beds in that facility’s efforts to increase physical distancing among their clients.

Those measures also include eliminating the use of bunk beds.

By the end of the week, 100 clients will have been moved to one of 1,200 hotel rooms secured by the city.

So far, eight people within the city’s shelter system have tested positive for COVID-19.

The province will provide 200,000 surgical masks to the city of Toronto to replace a defective batch officials were forced to discard earlier this week.

During Wednesday’s daily press briefing, city fire chief and head of emergency management Matthew Pegg said despite the province’s generosity, local officials are still having a challenging time locating timely --and quality --personal protective equipment in light of growing global concerns of faulty and fraudulent PPE.

“We are continuing to exhaust every viable supply chain option to secure the timely supply of the quality PPE we require,” Pegg said.

On Tuesday, the city announced the recall of over 62,000 surgical masks distributed to city long-term care homes after users reported them tearing as soon as they were put on the face.

Those masks were part of a $200,000 order of 4,000 boxes made by the city, from a vendor officials said they hadn’t used before and of a mask type they usually order.

Upon inspection, the masks --which officials confirmed were made in China --were found to be of poor quality and returned for what’s promised to be a full refund.

On March 28, 1,252 boxes containing 62,600 masks were distributed to city long-term care homes --used by 220 staff members across two facilities.

Pegg said there’s no “indication at this point if there was any consequential exposure,” but said that investigation is ongoing.