‘This kind of loss of life is inconceivable’
COVID-19 pandemic brought more changes to Toronto than could have been imagined
COVID-19 claimed its 1,000th victim in Toronto on Thursday, in a city emerging warily from lockdown.
It’s been nearly three months since the first death in the city was recorded — a man in his 70s who had visited the U.K. — and Mayor John Tory declared a state of emergency.
In a strange confluence of events, it arrived on the day Canada surpassed 100,000 COVID-19 cases.
“This kind of loss of life is inconceivable to us,” said Tory, moments after the announcement was made. “This affected everybody.”
Three months ago, when the first Torontonian died, the number of people infected was on the rise, at more than 200 new cases a day and climbing, and residents were complying with pleas from the medical officer of health to stay at home as much as possible.
You could safely have shot a cannon down Bay Street or Dundas Street or Yonge Street. They were empty, stores boarded up.
On Thursday, Toronto closed in on 14 straight days of decreases in new cases, one of the conditions to moving from Phase 1 to Phase 2 of reopening.
As the rate of new infections has slowed — there were only 73 new cases on Thursday — the spring sunshine and encouragement from public health officials have drawn people by the thousands to parks and boardwalks and cycling paths and into what are usually some of Toronto’s busiest thoroughfares, these days closed to cars on weekends.
Many businesses have reopened and it’s expected that in July, restaurants and bars that have been closed or only allowed to sell take-out, will be operating again in a modified way — with more patios and social distancing in place.
The pandemic has brought more changes to Toronto than could have been imagined.
For too many it brought the death of a loved one and sometimes more than one: Parents died separated from their children and grandchildren, who were unable to offer a final few words or embrace.
The dead in Toronto include war brides and their soldiers; high school sweethearts who died hours apart; survivors of the Great Depression, cancer, Nazi occupation, the Battle of Berlin, and a man named Gene Goldman, 88, who was thrown from a moving truck the night of his high school prom and into a sea of electric jellyfish and survived.
“It took an entire global pandemic to kill him,” his son Michael
Goldman said in his obituary.
The dead in Toronto include a trucker, a prankster, musicians, a postal worker, a polyglot, woodworker, dancers, snowbirds, coaches, salesmen and a 93-year-old named Raymond Harden who slept with a Blue Jays blanket spread across his bed, even in the long-term-care wing of the community complex where he lived.
Many were immigrants, with decades of life in Toronto under their belt.
The oldest publicly recorded death in Toronto was Foon Hay Lum, 111, one of Canada’s oldest women, who helped secure a formal apology and compensation for all Chinese-Canadians who paid a tax designed to discourage them from moving here after they’d help build the Canadian Pacific Railway that had united the country when it was new.
The youngest named Toronto victim was Jamal Ali, 45, a devoted family man and Scarborough basketball coach who bought shoes for the players who couldn’t afford them.
More than 60 per cent of those who died were over 80, according to current Toronto Public Health data. One person in their 20s died of COVID in Toronto and one in their 30s; seven between the ages of 40 and 49.
The worst-case scenario, according to modelling released by the province in April, has not yet come to pass — 15,000 deaths in the province; 3,000 in Toronto.
Not yet, and hopefully never. Those estimates were for deaths over two years, the amount of time it will likely take to achieve herd immunity or for a vaccine to be found.
Since the pneumonia of unknown cause was first reported to the WHO country office in China on Dec. 31, new terms have been added to our everyday vocabulary, including social distancing, PPE (personal protective equipment), Zoom and COVID-19, as the illness came to be called.
As late as Feb. 24, the city was being told by health officials that “the risk to our community remains low.”
At first only travellers from China were a concern, then travellers from the U.S. and Iran. On March 11, when the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, there were still no confirmed community transmissions in Toronto, but we were told to expect it.
On March 16, we learned it was being transmitted locally. It was spreading like wildfire in nursing homes.
There were shameful moments, including racism towards Asians in Toronto because this epidemic happened to start in Wuhan.
That run on toilet paper looked good on no one.
Our nursing homes were not prepared.
Tents popped up around the city because many people experiencing homelessness feared they were at risk of being infected in close quarters in shelters.
It hit poorer and immigrant neighbourhoods harder.
Hundreds of businesses have closed, from beloved restaurants to a store on the Danforth that used to supply the film industry with props and costumes.
There are things Toronto can be proud of — millions of people acted together to flatten the curve when it could have turned out differently.
Medical professionals and support workers, cleaners, TTC workers, shelter workers, put their lives on the line to care for others. Neighbours shopped for neighbours; the young and the healthy self-isolated to prevent spreading the illness to someone less likely than them to survive.
COVID-19 changed the way the city celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, Ramadan, Passover.
It was the quietest Good Friday and Easter Sunday on record. More animals crept into the city, including a family of foxes at the Beach. Birdsong became easier to hear.
Fans missed their sports. Nature lovers missed the Cherry Blossom festival in High Park, except for the guy who climbed the fence at night and peed there (and was found and fined).
The world watched in fascination the U.S. citizens who proudly declared their ignorance of the disease by continuing to congregate by the hundreds and thousands.
Making cloth masks became a cottage industry, whether to wear them or not controversial. We got sick of Netflix, baked bread. Teenagers went nocturnal.
We’ve stopped shaking hands, perhaps for good.
Millions of Canadians lost jobs. Food banks ran low and the Rogers Centre became a food distribution depot.
The city took the opportunity to greatly expand bike lanes — an experiment that could probably not otherwise have been conducted, and that could have lasting impact on the way we commute to work.
It’s not over yet.
The virus is still racing through the U.S. and it has returned to China, with Beijing once again in lockdown, and to New Zealand, where it was thought to be eradicated.
“Be patient,” Tory said, adding that he hopes that when it is finally over, some of the best things Toronto has done remain in place.
“It’s hard, because people get busy again,” he added.
“Let’s not forget some of the good that’s come out of this, both in terms of how fast we can do things when we co-operate, and how much we cared for each other in a material way.”