Toronto shoppers could bring health risk

Hirji urges local residents to stay safe, avoid large store crowds

Toronto and Peel residents largely shut out of Christmas shopping close to home due to severe COVID-19 restrictions could be looking to Niagara’s stores.

That’s something shoppers here should prepare for, said Dr. Mustafa Hirji, acting medical officer of health for Niagara Region.

He said it’s important that Niagara residents plan their shopping trips to avoid large crowds.

“The provincial government is pretty clear in its message, they don’t think people in those regions should be coming to places like ours where there are fewer cases,” Hirji said Sunday.

“I’m not sure that everyone is going to listen to that, and we’re likely going to see those people come.”

When possible, Niagara residents should shop at less busy times: “We’re going to protect ourselves that way,” Hirji said.

The province has put Niagara in the orange, or restrict, zone. For retail, that requires shoppers to wear masks and abide by two-metre spacing in lineups. Malls must have a safety plan.

Toronto and Peel were placed in grey, or lockdown stage. Inperson shopping is allowed at a few places — grocery stores and retailers that also sell food, pharmacies and beer, wine and liquor stores and hardware outlets.

The rest are limited to

curbside pickup or delivery service. While there is nothing to prevent out-of-towners from shopping here, “we’re going to be watching very closely to see if all of this influx of shopping has any impact on our numbers,” said Hirji.

On Saturday, Niagara reported 36 new COVID-19 cases — an “unusual spike,” Hirji said — while Sunday’s caseload was a more typical daily count of 17.

Niagara Region Public Health is reporting 1,979 COVID-19 cases since the start of the year, and there have been at least 82 deaths.

“The big message is that what’s happened in other regions isn’t something we are immune to,” he said. “We have gotten a little bit lucky, as well as we have a bit more distance from Toronto and Peel region, which is where the epicentre of cases is.

“The kinds of things happening in other regions that sort of have been forced upon them are things we should probably be thinking about doing here now voluntarily” to control case growth.

Although two positive COVID-19 cases led to an outbreak being declared at St. Martin Catholic Elementary School in Smithville last week — and two more school cases were reported there on the weekend, though not tied to the outbreak — Hirji said Niagara’s back-toschool experience has been good.

“One out of every seven people in Niagara is associated with schools, either as a student or staff person, so you would think one out of every seven cases we see in Niagara on average would turn out to be in a school,” he said.

“It has actually been much less than that. Schools are a place where we have had far fewer cases than we expected.

“And more importantly than that, when we do have cases in schools we don’t see infections spreading very often,” he said, adding Smithville is only the third case of infection spreading within a Niagara school.