Premier fears farm closure will discourage testing
Greenhouse shutdown ordered after virus infects nearly 200 workers
The order to temporarily close a massive greenhouse operation in Leamington after almost 200 workers caught COVID-19 will discourage farmers from getting their staff tested, Premier Doug Ford said Thursday, in remarks that drew sharp rebukes from critics.
“All of a sudden they shut down the farm and I understand where the chief medical officer is, but do you think that encourages other farmers to co-operate?” Ford added in reference to the move by Dr. Wajid Ahmed of the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit.
The premier expressed concern that large-scale greenhouses and other farms will not have enough migrant and domestic workers to get crops planted or harvests to market, potentially costing “hundreds of millions” in lost produce.
Workers at the farm “went and hid” when health workers sought them out for retesting in recent days, and only a handful agreed, Ford said.
“There’s a lot of farms on the brink now,” he told reporters Thursday as the province reported another 153 cases of COVID-19 across the province.
Two of those cases were farm workers in Windsor-Essex, where infections spiked to unprecedented levels last weekend. That prompted an order Wednesday requiring the unnamed Leamington greenhouse operation to isolate workers “until further notice,” health unit chief executive Theresa Marentett e said Thursday.
A total of 191 workers have tested positive at the greenhouse farm, which the health unit and Ford refused to identify, where tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers are grown yearround. The cases account for one-quarter of all farm worker cases from COVID-19 in the area to date.
“It’s a substantial amount of people,” said Marentette, who noted the order issued for the farm means its owners cannot hire contract workers to replace those who are sick with the virus or isolating because of contact with fellow workers who have tested positive.
Ontario’s chief medical officer backed the health unit’s decision, saying the greenhouse complex is an “industrial” operation that had another outbreak of more than 30 workers a month ago and has people working closely indoors in high humidity that may facilitate transmission of COVID-19.
“You usually have to carry out an order to close down the operation as much as possible ... so you contain contact and spread or you have just have it propagating through the whole thing and you put more staff at risk,”
Dr. David Williams told a briefing Thursday.
“By closing it down, and taking remedial action very quickly, you might have the opportunity to open it up again sooner once you have cleared it of any evidence of ongoing transmission.”
Ford’s remarks suggested he doesn’t understand how COVID-19 can create “a vicious cycle of transmission,” particularly among migrant workers who also live in bunkhouses on farms, said New Democrat MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex).
“Maybe Doug should get out of the way and let professionals handle this,” Natyshak said.
The activist group Justice For Migrant Workers said some farm workers say they have been denied access to testing by their employers or are fearful of being tested over fear of reprisals for testing positive.
“If the premier is serious about protecting our food system then protecting the interests of farm workers must be paramount,” said spokesman Chris Ramsaroop, who noted three migrant farm workers in Ontario have died from COVID-19.
Williams said interpreters are trying to reassure farm workers that testing is to safeguard their health and to make sure they get isolated or medical attention as required.
The Ministry of Health is using hotel rooms to isolate workers involved in the Leamington outbreak, which has contributed to the town and nearby Kingsville on the north shore of Lake Erie being held back from stage two reopening s that would allow indoor malls, restaurant patios, barber shops and nail and hair salons to resume operations.
The area is down to four farm operations with outbreaks of COVID-19, a drop of two from earlier in the week.
The number of outbreaks has also dropped in the province’s 626 nursing homes, falling by10 to 46 since Monday. That is the lowest level in weeks, although three more nursing-home residents and another eight staff have tested positive for the novel coronavirus that has killed 1,817 in long-term care.
As of 5 p.m. Thursday, there were four more deaths across the province, raising the total to 2,728, according to a Star compilation of data from health units in the previous 24 hours. There were 154 new confirmed and probable cases, raising that tally to 37,389 since late January.
“By closing it down, and taking remedial action very quickly, you might have the opportunity to open it up again sooner.”
DR. DAVID WILLIAMS CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER OF ONTARIO