Mayor asks GTA residents to stay away

Also urges locals to avoid travel to Durham Region and the Toronto area

Mayor Diane Therrien is asking residents from outside the Peterborough region to stay home for now — particularly those from designated grey and red zones under the Ontario government’s COVID -19 prevalence rating system.

“We are hearing comments in the community about people from other regions travelling into Peterborough,” she wrote in a statement emailed to The Examiner on Tuesday. “Municipalities have no authority to regulate who comes into the community.”

Toronto and Peel Region went into the grey lockdown zone on Monday, with most stores, restaurants and bars limited to pickup and delivery service only, while Durham Region moved into the red control zone.

“We are working with Peterborough Public Health to address any concerns that are under local authority, such as compliance with COVID-19 Response Framework,” Therrien stated.

“I strongly urge people from outside the Peterborough area, especially from designated Red zones, to stay home. We will welcome them back when it’s safe to do so,” she wrote.

Peterborough was designated a yellow caution zone on Monday, meaning new restrictions for restaurants, bars, gyms and public gathering places compared to the previous green zone designation.

Those businesses operate on shorter hours and only take people by reservation, for example, under yellow zone restrictions.

She also urged Peterborough residents not to go to Durham Region or anywhere in the GTA to visit family and friends.

Real Canadian Superstore employee tests positive

An employee of the Real Canadian Superstore at the Lansdowne Place mall in Peterborough has tested positive for COVID -19, according to Loblaw Companies Ltd.

The employee tested positive on Sunday. They had last worked at the store on Nov. 17.

Two at Fairhaven recover

Two more Fairhaven longterm-care home residents who had tested positive for COVID-19 have recovered and will be discharged from an isolation unit at the home, Fairhaven reported Tuesday afternoon.

That leaves four residents who have tested positive and remain in isolation following an outbreak that began Oct. 31 at the municipally run 256-bed home on Dutton Road in the north end of Peterborough.

Eleven residents have now recovered, while three have died.

There have been no additional positive cases and no additional deaths, Fairhaven also reported Tuesday afternoon.

Two staff members who tested positive remain as active cases after two other staff members who tested positive recovered earlier.

Staff members will be retested home-wide on Wednesday, Fairhaven also reported, along with all residents of the Westview 2 home area, where all the residents who tested positive had been from.

Two new local cases

Two new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Peterborough city and county, Curve Lake First Nation and Hiawatha First Nation were reported Tuesday afternoon by Peterborough Public Health.

Three other cases have also recovered, resulting in 16 active cases.

The number of people being monitored by the health unit for being at high risk due to close contact with a confirmed case soared to 66 people on Tuesday from 50 on Monday.

More than 36,150 residents, or 24.4 per cent, have been tested at least once for the virus.

New Northumberland cases

Two new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Northumberland County were reported Tuesday afternoon by the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit, raising the number of active cases to 15.

The jurisdiction has now had 288 confirmed cases to date, with the City of Kawartha Lakes at 192 cases with one active, Northumberland County at 71 cases with 12 active and Haliburton County at 25 cases with two active.