Public sector braces for absences
City of Toronto is preparing for a worst-case scenario in which 60% of staff could be off the job
The city of Toronto expects up to 60 per cent of its huge workforce to be swept off the job by COVID-19, triggering the reduction or cancellation of non-essential services during the worst of the Omicron variant wave.
Tuesday’s announcement hammered home that public sector agencies, like private employers, are scrambling to cope with unprecedented waves of worker absences — due to illness or isolation forced by close contact — just starting to be felt.
While officials stressed that critical services will continue, Torontonians will see changes in everything from libraries to transit routes to hospitals and attractions as infections skyrocket.
Toronto Public Library announced it will temporarily close 44 branches on Monday to keep the 52 “largest and most used” branches operating with 50 per cent capacity under provincial restrictions announced Monday.
An internal TPL memo obtained by the Star reported that last week the infection of 25 staff members forced the closure of six branches. As of Tuesday, more library employees were being forced off the job by Omicron.
The Toronto Zoo, another arm’slength city agency, announced it will close from Wednesday until at least Jan. 27 “to maintain critical staffing levels in essential areas related to the care and welfare of our animals and infrastructure.”
Mayor John Tory told a pandemic briefing Tuesday that staff absences have hit essential services such as vaccination clinics, and are expected to rise dramatically along with exponential growth of COVID-19, which is expected to last four to six weeks.
The city has about 32,000 active employees.
“We are planning for worst-case scenarios up to and including illness rates of as high as 50 to 60 per cent,” Tory said, adding redeployment plans are being readied to keep essential services going.
Toronto Fire Chief Matthew Pegg, head of the city’s pandemic emergency response, outlined actions already being taken to ensure preservation of vital services, including emergency response, drinking and waste-water systems, homeless shelters, city-run long-term-care homes and vaccination clinics.
Some parks, forestry and recreation services staff have been sent to work at vaccination clinics. Firefighters, fully trained in life-saving techniques, are being sent to less urgent 911 calls to ensure paramedics are available for critical calls.
“Most of us will encounter the virus in the next few weeks,” epidemiologist Tim Sly told the Star, but “many will not even know.”
“We can expect just about everyone to encounter the virus, but we cannot let that happen at the same time,” said Sly. “We have to bring back the old phrase ‘flatten the curve.’”
TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said the transit agency is already seeing a spike in employees booking off work, and expects Omicron to cause staffing shortages that will make it harder to meet scheduled service levels.
As of Tuesday morning, the TTC had 859 absences in its transit operations division, about 200 more than the same period in previous years. Green said it’s not clear how many were directly attributable to COVID-19.
The TTC has instituted “flexible contingency plans” to manage service in real time through its Transit Control Centre as cases increase.
“The priority will always be protecting service on the busiest routes at the busiest times of day — in other words delivering service based on demand,” Green said.
In an effort to keep workers healthy, the agency says it’s doing active COVID-19 screenings at work sites, distributing protective equipment to operators and installing enhanced driver barriers on vehicles.
TTC ridership is still at less than half of pre-pandemic volumes, and the agency expects demand to drop by as much as a further 10 per cent in the coming weeks as the new provincial restrictions keep students and commuters home.
Metrolinx, the provincial agency that operates GO Transit and UP Express, said it’s already seeing absenteeism rates of between 20 and 30 per cent among front-line staff, and has cancelled as many as 30 rail trips per day.
Starting Monday, the agency plans to formally reduce scheduled service “to protect the bulk of our services moving forward and provide a level of service customers can depend on,” according to Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins.
Details of the new schedules will be released in the coming days, but Aikins said in an email that the organization anticipates it will scale back rail service by about 15 per cent. The agency normally operates about 500 rail trips per day.
Metrolinx “will be very strategic about cancellations so customers can expect a level of service that will get them where they need to go,” she said.
“We know this is just temporary until we’re through this wave of the pandemic but appreciate our customers understanding and patience during this challenging time,” she said, adding ridership is only about 10 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
Kevin Smith, chief executive of University Health Network, which includes Toronto Western, Toronto General and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, said his organization is seeing 50 to 100 sick calls a day, most of them COVID-19 related.
“I have no doubt that the numbers are going to increase,” Smith added, though he hopes the province’s latest restrictions will help slow Omicron’s rise. Smith said UHN is redeploying staff to areas that need them most and prioritizing the vaccination of staff and their families.
Brad Wouters, another UHN official, said the network’s hospitals have more than 500 COVID-19-infected staff.
“Many organizations are preparing for 20-40 (per cent absenteeism), which I think is reasonable,” Wouters said in an email. “It will pose significant challenges to hospitals and many other sectors.”
Police services across Ontario are also bracing for the potential of greatly reduced staffing. Late last month — hours before he personally tested positive for COVID-19 — Toronto police Chief James Ramer told the Star he was crafting contingency plans for a worst-case scenario where nearly one-third of officers could be off at one time.
According to the latest available city data, three outbreaks have since been declared in Toronto police divisions, including at downtown’s 51 division, where an estimated18 cases were confirmed as of last Thursday.
“That’s the biggest thing that we are confronted with right now is contingencies with the respect to, you know, if 20 or 30 per cent of the organization gets sick, you know, how is that going to be staffed,” Ramer said at the time.
As of Monday, all “priority response units,” which respond to emergency calls across the city, will be staffed by officers on 12-hour shifts. The move ensures that a 24hour police response could be maintained, police said, and also allowed for the force to more smoothly move officers around according to need.
Joe Couto, a spokesperson for the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP), said for weeks police services have been revising staffing plans as Omicron hits their ranks, potentially in far greater numbers than previously seen.
“Unfortunately, none of us have been through something like this, to this degree,” Couto said. “So we are really counting on sharing information and experiences, not only across police services... but also talking to other first responders.”