Lockdown called a brutal necessity

Mayor, public health chief say regulations needed to avoid possible ‘nightmare’

Toronto Mayor John Tory and his public health chief welcome a return to lockdown in the face of a rapid surge in cases of COVID-19, even though the restrictions could kill some businesses and worsen hardships for vulnerable residents.

Premier Doug Ford’s decision to close restaurant patios and hair salons, reduce non-essential stores to curbside pickup or delivery only and impose other restrictions, effective Monday, are moves essential to avoiding a COVID-19 catastrophe, they said.

Ford’s order for Toronto and Peel Region bans private indoor gatherings with people who are not members of a household, closes gyms just days after they were allowed to reopen and prohibits weddings, funerals and religious gatherings of more than 10 people.

Schools and child-care services will stay open.

“Today’s decision by the province is the necessary decision” to halt the escalating spread of the virus that threatens to kill many more seniors home residents and overwhelm health supports in the city, triggering more deaths, Dr. Eileen de Villa said.

Asked what he says to local businesses for whom a return to lockdown is a certain death knell, Tory replied: “You don’t even know what to say,” adding he feels “deep regret” that the city must plunge back into lockdown for at least 28 days.

Business owners are “innocents victims” of the pandemic, he said.

But failing to take action to stop Torontonians from gathering and infecting each other risks a nightmare where so many employers and workers get sick, the economy cannot recover when a vaccine is available, Tory said.

“The business community will come back. The city and the business people, and all the other people, are too good to keep down,” he told reporters. “But we’ve got to get the virus down on the ground first and this is the best way.”

Neither would say how a list of requested restrictions de Villa submitted early this week to her provincial counterpart differed from the lockdown announced.

They said de Villa strongly recommended government support for low-income workers and other vulnerable Torontonians so they can get tested and, if required, isolate without fearing loss of income or employment.

Asked if the province is reckless to lock down without support in place, Tory said he hopes for news next week from the Ford government that will help Toronto’s northeast and northwest corners, where COVID-19 levels are high in racialized, low-income neighbourhoods.

Toronto recorded 420 new COVID-19 infections Friday, bringing the total number of local infections since the pandemic started to close to 37,000.

Almost half those infections have happened since Oct. 1, de Villa said, so “we must act firmly to disrupt COVID-19 and its ability to threaten and harm us.

“We know we can turn these numbers around.”