T.O. is moving closer to Stage 2 reopening

Public health chief and mayor signal city is ready to drop some restrictions

Torontonians are days away from being able to go out for haircuts, eat and drink on patios, shop in malls and other Stage 2 reopening luxuries, officials say.

After Toronto hit another public health milestone Friday in the months-long battle to contain COVID-19, Mayor John Tory and public health chief Dr. Eileen de Villa said the city is ready to join most of Ontario in throwing off more restrictions.

“We’re almost there,” Tory told reporters at a pandemic response briefing. “Someone once said that patience was bitter but that the results were sweet. And I feel something sweet coming our way.”

Toronto, Mississauga and other municipalities still in Stage 1 need provincial approval to open further, Tory noted, “but they are looking at the same numbers we are.”

Toronto hit a milestone Friday when the seven-day-average for new infections dropped for the 14th straight day, turning the city’s online “dashboard” for virus spread from yellow status to green.

Hospitalizations are also down, health care capacity is up, with only laboratory testing — a provincial responsibility — still deemed to need improvement.

But de Villa said Toronto is ready to safely reopen further regardless. “My understanding is our colleagues at the province are working very hard on (testing), but I don’t see that that should hold us up from Stage 2,” she said. “And we’re looking forward to getting to that moment of sweetness.”

City staff will restart issuing marriage licences Monday. In Stage 2, more suspended services will resume. Public swimming pools and splash pads will open.

Both Tory and de Villa encouraged Torontonians to continue the measures that have dramatically slowed the deadly pandemic’s progress — physical distancing, frequent handwashing, staying home when feeling ill.

Toronto will not, however, follow the lead of some Ontario municipalities and order residents to wear non-medical face coverings in stores and other indoor public spaces.

De Villa is “strongly encouraging” cloth mask use to limit virus spread as people emerge from quarantine and mix more, but she said she doesn’t believe her legislated powers allow her to make such an order for shoppers.

That’s despite her counterparts in Guelph and Windsor

Essex making such orders — with some exemptions — and the TTC announcing mask use will be mandatory on transit vehicles starting July 2.

“The legal advice that I’ve received on this question states that while I can strongly recommend the use of masks, it is outside my authority to make them mandatory,” de Villa said.

Tory, a lawyer, added: “I’ve heard the same legal advice, I had legal training and I think there is some doubt, at the very least as to the ability for us here in Toronto … to issue such an order.”

Cloth masks’ effectiveness in preventing transmission remains controversial, but a growing number of public health experts are calling for mandatory use.

“Someone once said that patience was bitter but that the results were sweet.” MAYOR JOHN TORY