August had fewer cases than last weekend

Ford calls on third-party food-delivery companies to lower commission

Ontario has recorded more new COVID-19 infections over the past four days than the entire month of August.

The Ministry of Health reported 746 new cases Tuesday for a four-day total of 3,011 after announcing a record 939 on Friday heading into the Thanksgiving long weekend.

Those numbers prompted Premier Doug Ford to unveil tougher restrictions, including a ban on indoor dining and closure of gyms and theatres in Toronto, Peel and Ottawa following a surge that began in early September.

Ford said he’s “praying” restrictions will not be needed for other areas of the province where cases are growing. He urged third-party food delivery services like UberEats that haven’t done so already to reduce commission rates charged to restaurants and bars struggling to survive under the new limits.

“It’s time for you to do your part,” Ford said at Mama Martino’s, an Italian restaurant on the Queensway. “We can’t have restaurants paying as much as 30 per cent commission to have their food delivered right now.”

With details yet to be provided on $300 million in assistance promised to businesses in the three hot zones of Toronto, the premier urged residents who can afford it to get more takeout food from “mom and pop” eateries.

“It could be the difference between a line cook getting a shift or not,” Ford added. “It can mean the difference between a family keeping their business or closing for good.”

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said Ford should cap the delivery fees at 15 per cent.

The long weekend also brought 20 deaths from the virus and the number of active cases — people diagnosed in the past 14 days — has reached 5,946 Ontarians, higher than the first wave peak of the pandemic in late April.

“Locally, there are 311 new cases in Toronto,135 in Peel and 116 in Ottawa,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said on Twitter, referring to daily infections reported by her officials Tuesday.

Chief medical officer Dr. David Williams said it will take seven to 10 days for the effect of new measures in Toronto, Peel and Ottawa to be felt. He said he was relieved Ontario did not hit 4,000 to 5,000 new cases over the long weekend, given that computer models had predicted 1,000 or more cases daily by mid-October, but warned, “we are not out of the woods.”

The number of outbreaks in nursing homes increased by 10 to 66 in long-term care facilities since Friday, with 17 residents and 17 staff testing positive for COVID-19 in the last two days.

Ford acknowledged the federal government acted on the province’s request to get the Red Cross to help out in several Ottawa-area nursing homes struggling with growing outbreaks. In the spring, he asked the federal government to send in military medical teams to a handful of homes in crisis because of drastic staff shortages.

New Democratic Party Leader Andrea Horwath called on Ford to release a list of nursing homes the government considers to be in its “red zone” and most in need of assistance, given that the government colourcodes homes as red, yellow or green.

Labs across the province continued to reduce the backlog of tests that require processing, taking it down to 24,420 or less than a day’s lab capacity.