Ontario to decide in ‘near future’ whether COVID-19 will shut down overnight summer camps

Thestar.com
May 19, 2020
Rob Ferguson

Ontario’s chief medical officer is promising an answer in the “near future” on the fate of overnight summer camps, but industry sources say it’s probably light’s out because of COVID-19.

“The season is coming,” Dr. David Williams acknowledged Friday, saying he’s aware parents need information “in time to make decisions around the summer.”

“We hope to have something fairly soon,” he told a daily teleconference where a “glitch” that resulted in an artificially low number of new COVID-19 cases being reported was explained as infections and deaths continued to climb.

Meanwhile, the City of Toronto announced Friday it is cancelling all camps and recreation programs.

With overnight camps needing weeks to prepare their grounds and facilities for the summer, some have made the difficult decision to stay closed this year and others say it won’t be business as usual if they are allowed to open.

“There are simply too many known and unknown risks,” Camp Manitou, near Parry Sound, said in its latest blog post explaining why it has axed the season.

“Whether it be our infectious disease experts, physicians, public health or our local medical officer of health, we are told repeatedly that camps are an amplifier to a degree that makes them a significant vector for passing on the virus.”

Camp Ponacka on Baptiste Lake near Bancroft is leaning the same way, said director Don Bocking.

“It’s pretty much not going to happen,” he told the Star. “You’ll hear a collective scream from parents and kids and staff.”

The owner of Glen Bernard Camp in Sundridge, north of Huntsville, said it’s difficult for camps to plan how to operate in a pandemic.

“I’m hoping to do something but I’m not going to be able to run the full Glen Bernard package,” said Jocelyn Palm. “I’m waiting for more decisions from the government.”

Camps also mentioned concerns about potential government requirements for staff to wear personal protective equipment such as masks and face shields and erect plastic barriers that would be difficult given the nature of camp activities.

There have also been worries about what to do if children test positive -- would they be isolated immediately and sent home, or would a camp have to shut down?

The virus continues to spread daily, although at a slower pace than weeks ago.

A Star compilation of Ontario’s public health units at 5 p.m. Friday showed another 394 confirmed and probable cases in the previous 24 hours, for a total of 23,402 known infections since the outbreak began in January.

There were 24 more deaths, raising the toll to 1,926.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said a “technological glitch” resulted in the Ministry of Health’s official count of 258 new COVID-19 cases announced Thursday being artificially low in the provincial database and trumpeted as the lowest daily number since March 31.

“For whatever reason, 87 cases from the City of Toronto weren’t uploaded,” she told reporters of the mistake flagged Thursday by the Star, which notified the government after checking a detailed breakdown and seeing just 45 new cases in Toronto, far lower than usual.

“While the number isn’t as good as we thought yesterday it still is good in that the total number of cases from yesterday were actually 345 and there’s 341 today,” Elliott added.

“We are still seeing a gradual, slow downturn.”

The Star maintains a separate count of COVID-19 cases and deaths based on the tallies posted to the websites of Ontario’s 34 public health units. Because many health units publish tallies to their websites before reporting to Public Health Ontario, the Star’s count is more current than the data the province puts out each morning based on a 4 p.m. deadline the previous day.

There is a continuing problem that the province’s official case numbers have “not matched public health data,” said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

“Low testing numbers and sketchy reliability in data increases the risk for everyone as we begin to relax isolation measures. We need good, fast, accurate data to respond quickly in the weeks ahead.”