Toronto Public Library to shut branches, zoo to close as city prepares for mass staff absences due to COVID-19

City staff are planning how to maintain essential services under a “worst-case scenario” with as many as 60 per cent of city staff off work due to an explosion of infections fuelled by the Omicron variant.

Thestar.com
Jan. 5, 2022
David Rider

Toronto’s library system will close almost half its branches due to COVID-19-related staff shortages, while the broader city public service braces for the possibility of more than half of staff off sick during the virus’s Omicron wave.

Toronto Public Library said Tuesday that 44 branches will be temporarily shuttered starting next Monday and staff redeployed to keep the 52 “largest and most used” branches operating as COVID-19 infections and isolations continue to mount.

A list of the branches that will close is online here.

The branches remaining open will offer full services, TPL said in a news release, as will bookmobile and Home Library Services , digital collections, online programs and Answerline.

Toronto residents aged 13 and older who don’t have a library card can register for a Digital Access Card online.

Also Tuesday, the city of Toronto in a statement said it, “like all cities around the world, has been planning for a high number of unplanned staff absences due to illness or COVID-19 isolation requirements for both critical and essential services, as well as noncritical and non-essential services.”

Mayor John Tory told a pandemic briefing that the city is already feeling the impacts of staff absences in services including vaccination clinics and redeploying staff to ensure emergency and essential services continue.

Tory said the city’s worst-case scenario envisions between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of the roughly 32,000 active employees off work due to COVID-19.

The city’s leadership is “laser focused” on redeploying staff from divisions including parks, forestry and recreation to ensure continued operation of homeless shelters, long-term-care homes and vaccination clinics, Tory said.

Emergency services will continue uninterrupted but firefighters -- who are fully trained in life-saving skills -- are being sent to lower-priority 911 calls to ensure paramedics are free to go to the most dire situations.

“Response times, particularly for low-priority calls, may increase from pre-pandemic levels,” the city said in a news release.

Toronto Zoo announced Tuesday that, while it could keep outside areas operational under provincial pandemic restrictions announced Monday, the entire facility will close from Wednesday until at least Jan. 27.

The full closure is necessary, the zoo said, “to maintain critical staffing levels in essential areas related to the care and welfare of our animals and infrastructure.”