Mayor John Tory promises to ‘bring the hammer down’ as COVID-19 infections rise in Toronto

Yorkregion.com
Sept. 22, 2020

City officials are promising stronger enforcement of regulations and bylaws aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19, amid a troubling and persistent increase in the number of cases.

“It is time to get much tougher, to bring the hammer down as it were, when it comes to enforcement,” said Mayor John Tory, speaking at a COVID-19 news conference at city hall.

Tory said the city has so far focused on education and warnings, but the time has come to mete out consequences to scofflaws.

“I think most people acknowledge we have arrived at that time, “ Tory added. “There is a lot at stake. It’s time to comply.”

Ontario reported an additional 425 new cases on Monday, including 175 in Toronto, well above the averages seen this summer of 15 a day in the city.

Toronto’s medical officer of health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, said there were 453 new infections over the weekend in Toronto.

“We knew infections would rise with reopening, but why is it happening to this extent? On some level, too many people refuse to accept that everything has changed and we need to change too,” said de Villa, at the news conference.

“We have not passed a point of no return. We can still turn this around,” she said, adding that people must practise physical distancing, wear masks when they’re in the company of people outside their social circle and wash their hands often.

“I fear that, on some level, too many of us are unwilling to make the changes we need to keep everyone safe and limit the spread of COVID-19,” de Villa said.

“Of all the things that I worry about at 3 o’clock in the morning, that’s what worries me most.”

While promising more enforcement, the city is not assigning more bylaw officers, police officers or public health officials to the task. No new hires have been made, according to Matthew Pegg, chief of Toronto Fire Services and the person leading Toronto’s preparedness and response to COVID-19.

“I have convened enhanced enforcement co-ordination meetings with our respective enforcement officers to ensure that we are fully connected and co-ordinated on all aspects of COVID-19-related enforcement,” Pegg said. “Our strategy is straightforward. We will enforce provincial regulations in an effort to arrest the spread of COVID-19.”

New provincial regulations call for fines of $10,000 for a homeowner or organizer of an event that exceeds the maximum number of people set by the province, and $750 for those in attendance.

Premier Doug Ford announced last week that to stem the increasing spread of COVID, the number of people allowed at social gatherings across Ontario will be set at 10 indoors and 25 outdoors, for the next 28 days.

Pegg said the proposed amendments will empower police officers to order that a venue be temporarily closed if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that an organized public event or other gathering is taking place, and that the number of people exceeds provincial limits.

Pegg said the command centre received 21 complaints related to gatherings over the weekend, but the thresholds for enforcement were not met. In a number of cases, the gathering might have dispersed before enforcement officers arrived, he said.

Earlier in the day, de Villa told the Toronto Board of Health meeting that only 25 per cent of new COVID-19 test results are being turned around in 24 hours -- the goal is 60 per cent within 24 hours.

Testing is a provincial responsibility, but TPH relies on those lab results to conduct fast and effective contact tracing to warn those who came into contact with someone who has the virus to monitor for symptoms or isolate as needed.

“We need the results and we need them in a timely fashion,” said de Villa.

The Board of Health voted on a number of measures Monday to help fight the virus, including establishing a system to publicly share details of workplace outbreaks, without compromising individual privacy.

The board also voted to call on the province to fund on-site dedicated infection and control expertise at each long-term care facility; to urge the federal government to take action to better track international travellers and support better compliance with the Quarantine Act, which obliges them to quarantine for 14 days; and to ask the federal and provincial governments to implement a pilot project in schools that uses saliva to test for COVID-19 and scale up the program as required.