While the provincial government has focused recent testing efforts on those in long-term care homes, Premier Doug Ford said he also wants to see "all child care workers tested" for COVID-19.
His comments come the day after the City of Toronto reported that three staff at the Jesse Ketchum Early Learning and Child Care Centre had tested positive for COVID-19. The city said in a statement on April 28 that two other staff and two children were waiting for test results and that the centre would be closed for two weeks. Toronto Mayor John Tory provided an update on Wednesday afternoon and said four staff and one child were infected.
"I want to protect our children, that’s our number one priority, to make sure they're safe," said Ford on Wednesday as he announced his government's plan to expand the list of frontline workers who could access emergency child care services. Grocery store clerks, truck drivers and retirement home workers are among those now eligible for free emergency child care.
The workers added to the list include:
- grocery store and pharmacy workers
- Truck drivers
- Food supply chain workers (this includes food processing)
- Retirement home staff
- Support staff in health-care settings (cooks and cleaning staff in hospitals and long-term care homes)
- Interpreters and intervenors supporting deaf and deafblind individuals
- Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry emergency staff
- Provincial officers and onsite staff in Ontario courts
- Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence staff working in Ontario
- Public safety and correctional services workers
When the government first announced emergency child care in March, the service was available to health-care workers like doctors, nurses, paramedics, firefighters, police and correctional officers. The list was expanded on April 17 to include shelter, power and postal workers along with border agents.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams acknowledged the premier's request to test child care workers, saying health officials would work on a plan to do surveillance testing of staff in these centres.
The government has not said which phase of its plan to reopen the economy non-emergency child care centres would fall into. Asked whether they could be part of the first phase, Education Minister Stephen Lecce didn't specify, but said the government understands child care is often "a prerequisite for labour market participation."
"As the economy returns and we have a recovery, we want to see more people working and therefore we need to ensure that child care is accessible," he said. "So part of broader recovery plan is very much considering that reality."
Another health-care worker death
SEIU Healthcare announced Wednesday a second personal support worker has died from COVID-19 in Ontario. The woman delivered homecare services with the Victorian Order of Nurses, her union said.
"The tragic death of our union sister is the second loss of a personal support worker (PSW) in as many weeks as a result of ongoing failures to protect healthcare workers during COVID-19," said union president Sharleen Stewart. "Like many healthcare workers precariously employed, she was a dedicated PSW who served her community through multiple employers and facilities in the Peel Region."
"From day one of this emergency, health and safety protections, PPE protocols, and government directives have insufficiently protected PSWs from ongoing threats, whether they work in homecare, long-term care, or hospitals," she continued. "While requests for urgent discussions with Chief Medical Officer [Dr. David Williams] have gone ignored, we will continue to demand greater protections for PSWs and all our healthcare heroes who work to keep the rest of us safe and secure."
Testing
The premier said he's confident the province will meet its goal of completing 16,000 COVID-19 tests a day by May 6.
"We’ll make sure we hit that target," Ford said, striking a different tone to a few weeks ago when he called the low rate of testing in Ontario "absolutely unacceptable." At the time the number of results coming in each day was less than 5,000.
The province reported on Wednesday that 11,554 tests had been processed the day before — that's up from the 10,852 tests that were done the day prior and down from the 12,550 test two days prior.
Provincial health officials have also set a goal of 14,000 tests by April 29, but this goal was less than the 18,900 tests officials had previously said they wanted to reach by April 17.
Asked whether he would still consider reopening the economy if the province didn't have adequate testing, Ford said they'll continue to ramp up testing and that he's "satisfied" with the current numbers.
"We increased testing drastically," he said. "We had a little fallback yesterday to a little over 10,000, but a majority of the days we’re doing over 12,500."
"They’ve really picked it up over the past few weeks and they’re doing an extremely good job," he added.
Province adds retirement home data
For the first time on Wednesday, Public Health Ontario included in its COVID-19 epidemiological summary data for retirement homes, just as it has been doing for long-term care facilities.
Recently, the government started posted long-term care data from both its integrated Public Health Information System (iPHIS) and the Ministry of Long-Term Care, since the latter seemed to have more up-to-date numbers.
According to iPHIS, there were 642 cases of COVID-19 in retirement homes — 419 residents and 223 staff — with 77 deaths among residents.
Dr. Barbara Yaffe, associate chief medical officer of health, noted during a briefing on Wednesday afternoon, however, that numbers from the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility showed higher numbers: 856 cases — 593 residents and 263 staff — and 117 deaths.
Ford says he's "not willing to roll the dice"
Premier Ford said he's hopeful that the province is moving closer to the point of reopening after the Ontario saw, for the most part, a decrease in the number of new cases recently.
"This is a positive trend," said Ford. "I can’t give you dates right now, but what I can give you is hope that we’re getting closer."
When asked about other provinces like Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec, which are moving towards reopening their economies, Ford noted that Ontario is different and that he's "not willing to roll the dice." Ontario, he said, would restart the economy "in a trickle."
Asked about the divide between businesses that might not be able to sustain themselves through the pandemic and public sector workers who still have their jobs, Ford shot back that the government is "still working."
"They’re working remotely, but everyone’s still working," he said. "It’s not like people have their feet up outside with a margarita in their hands."
Ford said he wants to ensure that Ontario has a "fully functional government" once things somewhat normalize.
Federal-provincial collaboration
One day after Ontario shared its framework for reopening the economy — one that didn't include any dates or specific sectors — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canada's premiers released their own set of guidelines for easing public health restrictions.
On Wednesday morning, Trudeau defended the shared guidelines released on Tuesday that also didn't include many specifics, noting that each province and territory is riding through the pandemic in a different manner.
"We worked very hard with the premiers across the country to ensure that we could get guidelines that reflected the foundational science and the best advice given by medical experts and scientists about what needed to be in place before provinces and regions could think about reopening," Trudeau said when asked why there were no measurable targets in the guidelines.
"Every region, every province, every territory is facing a very different situation right now with different industries, different sized cities and different spread of COVID-19," he said. "That's why we needed to make sure the foundational elements were there that we could all follow as Canadians, but recognize that different jurisdictions will act differently."
He said all leaders recognize the danger of "opening up too quickly" and that they all want to make sure that reopening is done right.
Similar to the criteria Ontario identified as necessary in order to start reopening the economy, Trudeau and the premiers agreed that COVID-19 transmission needs to be controlled and the health system needs to have sufficient capacity to "test, trace, isolate, and control the spread" of the virus while also being able to support both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients. The leaders also agreed that vulnerable populations like seniors and Indigenous people need to be protected through testing and personal protective equipment.
According to a statement from Canada's premiers, the provincial and territorial leaders also acknowledged that the "re-opening of international borders and access for non-Canadian residents may only happen in later stages" and that provinces should take a co-ordinated approach to easing restrictions related to domestic travel.
The prime minister announced in mid-March that Canada would be shutting its borders to most foreign travellers with some exceptions including for family members, diplomats and U.S. citizens (although non-essential travel between Canada and the U.S. is currently barred).
On Wednesday, Premier Ford didn't hold back when saying he didn't want non-Ontarians coming to the province right now.
"We don’t want people right now coming across the border," Ford said when asked if he was considering controlling movement from Quebec since the province is planning to start reopening some sectors, but has outnumbered Ontario when it comes to COVID-19 cases.
"I love Quebecers, I love people from Manitoba, but stay at home, and the same goes for the U.S. as well," Ford said. "It’s nothing personal, we can’t afford the spread of this virus here in Ontario."
The premiers also said in an April 28 statement that "accountability and transparency" would be one of their guiding principles and that each government would monitor the impacts of reopening the economy and provide updates.
"Data sharing is critical to understanding the situation across Canada and is essential to informing efforts to re-open segments of the economy," they said.
-with files from Jessica Smith Cross
Photo Credit: Steve Russell/Toronto Star
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