One week into lockdown, Toronto hits record for daily new COVID-19 infections

Thestar.com
Dec. 1, 2020
David Rider

Toronto suffered a record 643 new COVID-19 cases Monday, one week after the Ontario government plunged the city back into lockdown.

Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s public health chief, urged Torontonians to not panic or think the economic and social pain isn’t paying off, but to look at longer-term trends and focus on the need to stay away from each other as much as possible.

“The restrictions are in the early stages,” de Villa told reporters at a briefing, referring to Ontario-ordered “grey zone” rules for Toronto and Peel that shut indoor dining, gyms and most in-store retail while capping wedding sizes.

“Contact between people has only just been reduced as a result of the measures … Time is needed to get the full picture as the new measures take effect.”

Increased testing could help explain some of the spike in identification of positive cases, including ones with no symptoms, de Villa added.

Based on the lockdown in Toronto last spring and others imposed elsewhere, it won’t start showing positive impacts for at least 14 days, the virus’s incubation period, she said.

De Villa noted new infections were 331 the previous Monday and since then ranged most days in “the high 400s and mid-500s.”

Focus on the startling addition of 643 infected people to help commit yourself to what we know reduces spread, de Villa said -- physical distancing, mask wearing, hand washing, socializing only with fellow household members and not going to work or school when sick.

Toronto Mayor John Tory said that in a conference call earlier Monday mayors and chairs from municipalities in the GTA-Hamilton area reaffirmed their unanimous support for a program to ensure infected people don’t have to work.

“The notion we should just let them continue to go to work and spread (the virus) to other people because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their job or their paycheque is ridiculous,” Tory said.

The Ontario and federal governments have so far offered only “polite” acknowledgement of the request first made jointly by the mayors and chairs on Friday, Tory said, but they need to act now to limit deadly COVID-19 spread.

Despite concerns that “Black Friday” sales day and the first weekend under the renewed lockdown could see widespread rule-breaking, that wasn’t the case in Toronto, said Fire Chief Matthew Pegg, heading Toronto’s emergency response to the pandemic including enforcement of orders related to COVID-19.

Of 130 restaurants inspected only two were found to be non-compliant with the order that also closed patios. Sixteen charges against operators of non-essential stores included hair salons and furniture shops. One charge related to a private gathering.

An inspection of Toronto malls found all to be following the rules, Pegg said, including on Friday, which is normally a blowout start to holiday shopping season.

In Mississauga, police broke up a party of 60 people in an Airbnb rental, issuing a total of $45,000 in fines to the host and party-goers. Two businesses were charged, Friday and Saturday, with breaching rules aimed at limiting virus spread.

York Region, which was kept out of the grey-zone lockdown at the request of local politicians, had a record 251 new infections Sunday.

On Saturday, York authorities charged eight businessses, including Vaughan Mills Mall, with not following COVID-19 safety measures. Another blitz Sunday saw charges against 16 residents and businesses including an indoor soccer facility linked to an outbreak, a gym, a McDonald’s, a Costco and a Walmart.