Top COVID-19 stories and news
- Apple and Google data shows impact of physical distancing in Toronto
- Green Beanery shuts down permanently
- Toronto to livestream High Park cherry blossoms
- The pandemic is financially blindsiding millennials
- Coronavirus: Conservatives play China blame game
Follow the latest Toronto news on coronavirus
4:50 pm Toronto has more than 4,000 COVID-19 cases
As of 12:30 pm today, there are 4,069 cases of COVID-19 in Toronto, including 3,685 confirmed cases and 384 probable cases. There are 290 people in hospital, with 106 in intensive care. There have been 210 deaths in Toronto.
4 pm Toronto to close High Park during cherry blossom season
Mayor John Tory announced on Wednesday that the city will completely close down High Park to avoid large crowds when the cherry blossoms are in peak bloom.
The park, which is already closed to vehicle traffic, will shutter during the pre-bloom and peak bloom periods. The exact dates will depend on weather and will be announced when the bloom period is determined.
“While we understand many residents use High Park every day, a partial closure of the park isn’t possible given the number of cherry blossom trees throughout the park and the size and layout of the park itself,” the city said in a statement. “Health and parks staff believe this is the best plan to discourage gathering and protect public health.”
As we reported yesterday, the city is planning to livestream the cherry blossoms. Read more here.
1:37 pm Doug Ford to request Canadian Forces assist in long-term care homes
Ontario will make a formal request to the federal government to bring in reinforcements, including Public Health Agency of Canada and Canadian Forces personnel, to assist in five priority long-term homes, premier Doug Ford said today.
Ford said the Canadian Forces personnel will assist with operations, coordination for medical care, logistics, medical assistance and day-to-day operations support so that workers can focus on caring for residents.
12:01 pm Toronto no longer ticketing people on park benches
Police and bylaw officers will cease issuing tickets to people sitting on park benches, the city said in a fact sheet about what residents can and can’t do in parks.
“The city will no longer be issuing tickets to people using park benches,” the fact sheet reads. “However, benches are not destinations where people should begin to congregate. Benches are not sanitized. People may unknowingly spread the virus by sneezing or touching the bench when the next person comes along, sits down and touches the bench.”
Toronto closed park amenities in order to curb community spread of COVID-19 and passed an emergency bylaw to make hanging out in public parks and squares, including lingering on benches and chairs, a ticket-able offence.
Reports of people being fined $750 for sitting on park benches sparked criticism from residents and civil liberty groups.
The city is encouraging residents to avoid parks. If they are running or walking through to get exercise, Toronto wants to you to “keep moving.”
11:25 am Trudeau announces $9 billion in aid for students
The federal government will provide $9 billion in funding programs to help students weather the coronavirus pandemic, prime minister Justin Trudeau said today.
The PM listed a series of new measures, including the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB), which will give students up to $1,250 per month from May to August. Students that take care of someone else or have a disability will get $1,750 per month.
People making up to $1,000 per month and attending post-secondary school right now, going to college in fall or graduated in December 2019 are eligible. The funding will be delivered through the Canada Revenue Agency and will begin May 1 – pending parliament enacting legislation.
Trudeau also announced:
- The creation of 76,000 jobs created for young people, in addition to the Canada Summer Jobs Program, in sectors in need or on front lines of pandemic.
- $250 million to extend research fellowships and grants by three or four months depending on a researcher’s funding.
- The new Canada Student Service Grant for volunteers that will give students $1,000 to $5,000 depending on hours.
- $75 million in funding for Inuit, First Nations and Metis students.
- The doubling grants the feds will give out in the new school year (2020-2021). Quebec, Northwest Territories and Nunavut will receive funding directly to extend their own programs.
11:17 am Ontario has more than 12,000 cases of COVID-19
There are now 12,245 cases of COVID-19 in Ontario, public health officials reported on Wednesday. The province’s latest data – accurate as of Tuesday afternoon – showed an increase of 510 cases or 4.3 per cent over the previous report.
That’s a slight decrease in the overall percentage increase since the day before and the lowest increase since April 18.
There have been 654 deaths, an increase of 37, and more than 50 per cent of the province’s cases – 6,221 – are resolved.
There are 878 patients in hospital, with 243 in intensive care and 192 in intensive care on ventilators. Overall, 11.9 percent of Ontario’s cases were hospitalized.
The long-term care sector is being hit hardest by the virus. There are 125 outbreaks in care homes – an increase in four over the previous report – and 295 deaths have been reported among residents and patients, an increase of 22.
The Greater Toronto Area accounts for 59.3 per cent of cases.
In terms of testing, the province conducted 10,361 tests since the previous report. In all, 184,531 tests have been carried out and 6,845 cases are under investigation.
9:45 am Toronto Public Health to collect race-based COVID-19 data
Toronto Public Health has started analyzing race-based and socio-demographic data related to COVID-19, Toronto Board of Health chair Joe Cressy said on Wednesday.
“Public health data is one of the most important tools we have to combat COVID-19,” Cressy wrote in a tweet accompanying a letter to board members. “We should be collecting as much information about COVID-19 as possible, including disaggregated race-based data, so we can better understand how this virus impacts different groups of people.
“Access to comprehensive ethno-racial data in Ontario is crucial for understand COVID-19 and its connection to systemic inequities,” he added. “Unfortunately, the province is not tracking COVID-19 data based on race or ethnicity when testing. In that absence, Toronto Public Health is partnering with hospitals and others to try to collect race-based and additional data to inform our response.”
Cressy’s letter states that Toronto Public Health has begun “a preliminary ecological analysis linking home address of COVID-19 cases” to census data for specific areas in the city “as a proxy for individual-level data.”
The goal is to determine if there are disparities on COVID-19 hospitalizations. The data has been analyzed up to April 13 and no trends have emerged, he added. The data will be updated weekly.
TPH is exploring other partnerships to collect the data as well as the possibility of including race in the city’s newly launched pandemic data system, the Coronavirus Rapid Entry System.
The issue of race-based data during the crisis has been raised repeatedly at the provincial level after data collected in the United States recently revealed COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting Black people there.
In Ontario, nearly 200 public health groups have signed an open letter calling on the province to collect the data. At recent press conferences, both Ontario’s top doctor David Williams and premier Doug Ford have pushed back against calls to collect demographic data related to the pandemic.
9 am Canada has over 38,000 cases of COVID-19
As of April 20, there are 38.422 cases of COVID-19 in Canada and 1,834 people have died.
The outbreak is a serious public health threat though most people who contract the virus have not been hospitalized.
Symptoms include cough, fever, difficulty breathing and pneumonia in both lungs and may take up to 14 days to appear after exposure. People age 65 and over and people with compromised immune systems and/or underlying medical conditions have a higher risk of contracting a severe case.
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