Self-isolated mayor calls for community to ‘come together’

Dilkens appeals for calm, common sense as city tries to stop spread of COVID-19

Mayor Drew Dilkens is back in Windsor and working from home under quarantine, after escaping Jordan just as officials there shut down the border and cancelled all flights in or out of the country.

It was an intense end to what started out as a long-awaited leisurely family vacation.

“Everything seemed to be sort of fine for half the time,” Dilkens said Tuesday. “Then all of a sudden, Jordan is closing their borders with Israel and land borders with all their neighbouring countries, and then announced they’re closing all inbound and outbound airport operations as of today (Tuesday).

“Obviously, that gave a signal to people that if you want to leave Jordan, leave before March 17, which put a run on every seat on every available flight out of there.”

Dilkens and his family are now in isolation for the next 14 days. He said no one in his family is showing symptoms of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus that started in China and spread across the globe.

“We’re all completely healthy, we’re all fine,” Dilkens said from his home. “My wife is working here. I’m working here. My son has a few weeks off school now. My daughter is waiting to figure out what’s happening with the university.”

Dilkens said he booked the trip to Jordan, his third vacation to the country, in July. He monitored the situation in the days before his departure. Jordan, a country of 10 million people, had one reported case, he said.

There were reports Tuesday that Jordan now has 35 known cases, including nine foreigners.

Dilkens and his family left March 5 — before the World Health Organization declared a worldwide pandemic, governments including Ontario declared a state of emergency and everything from bars to gyms were shut down.

“We made the decision to go and I don’t regret that decision,” said Dilkens. “Certainly, if I knew then what I know now, would I make a different choice? Of course.

“Some folks are saying that I left in the middle of a global pandemic. I left like five days before it was even declared a global pandemic, and no one could have reasonably foreseen what happened with the World Health Organization and how fast everything would have happened in North America.”

Dilkens and his family were scheduled to come home Monday. After the situation started escalating, they tried to leave earlier.

“There wasn’t a seat available on any flight out of there earlier,” he said. “It was completely fully subscribed and probably oversubscribed. There were probably people showing up hoping they could find someone didn’t make it and take their seat. So we just had to wait for regular flight. There was nothing we could do.”

Despite the concerns, things were relatively calm in Jordan, he said. But there were still obvious signs that the world had changed.

“The hotel we were at, it’s a big resort,” said Dilkens. “Last night, there were like 40 people there. The general manager said that as of Tuesday, once the flights are all cancelled, he said there will be 14 people in this hotel.”

Now that he’s back, he said having to stay home won’t affect his job, pointing out that the prime minister and the mayors of London, Ont., and Toronto are also in isolation.

“Everyone will keep doing their job, myself included,” he said. “I’ve spent half the day on the phone. In fact, I spent half my trip away on the phone dealing with issues at the city related to this. It’s no different except we’re on the same time zone now.”

Dilkens said he had several teleconferences Tuesday, including a big city mayors meeting with the deputy prime minister, where he planned to push for support for small businesses and service industry people who will be shut down or out of work.

He also talked with FCA officials about the state of Windsor Assembly Plant, and had discussions with emergency operations personnel about these “unprecedented times.”

With city arenas, community centres, pools and libraries already closed ahead of the province declaring a state of emergency, Dilkens said officials will turn to things like monitoring transit and city hall operations.

“My expectation will be that we’ll probably cancel the next meeting of council and not meet again until early April,” he said.

He also appealed for calm and common sense.

“This is a quickly evolving situation, the likes of which we’ve never seen before, and we need to come together as a community,” said Dilkens. “Let’s respect the fact that we have a lot of people who need all sorts of food, toilet paper. Let’s not have runs on those kinds of things. Let’s be considerate of everyone in the community.”

“This may go on for three weeks. It may go on for three months, and it’s going to be unpleasant as we work through it together. But we will come out stronger on the other side.”