June 15 - Update

Dear Friends and neighbours, It looks like all of us in Toronto are going to have to wait a little bit longer before we can enter Phase 2 of the province’s gradual reopening plan. Premier Doug Ford announced today that all of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area except for Toronto and Peel region can move to Stage 2 of reopening on June 19. In the meanwhile, the Ontario government has extended the number of people allowed to attend an indoor wedding or funeral ceremony to a maximum of 30 per cent capacity of the ceremony venue. Wedding and funeral ceremonies taking place outdoors will be limited to 50 attendees. For both indoor and outdoor ceremonies, those attending must follow proper health and safety advice. While we wait to get the green light to reopen businesses such as restaurants, the City has opened registration for CafeTO today. This program aims to provide more outdoor dining areas to help some restaurants, bars and cafes create physical distancing on patios during the summer months, including looking at ways to expedite the current application and permitting process and waive fees for sidewalk and curb lane cafés. A simple online registration form and guidebook for the proposed program is now available at toronto.ca/cafeTO. Today, City Staff released a report that outlines the response by staff prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, its actions during the pandemic, and recommendations on how best to adapt the City’s 10 long-term care homes post-COVID-19. Staff have made 16 recommendations based on experience and learning from sustained outbreaks in some of its homes, to no resident outbreaks in one home. At one point during the pandemic, all City long-term care homes reported residents and/or staff with the virus. Today, 11 residents in three City homes are positive for COVID-19. Read the news release here. The full report can be found here. While the City is working to improve its complex system of underground pipes, sewers, and catch basins, these improvements alone cannot completely protect a home from basement flooding. With increasingly heavy rainstorms taking place, it is important that homeowners take steps to help protect their home from basement flooding. For basement flooding prevention tips, and subsidies from the City to install basement flooding protection devices in eligible households, please click here.   Have your say on how Toronto can recover, rebuild & emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic even stronger. Take the survey by June 30 at http://toronto.ca/RecoveryRebuild Sincerely, Frances

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City of Toronto working to safely reopen licensed child care centres The City of Toronto is beginning a phased approach to reopening City-run licensed child care centres starting Monday, June 29 with the enhanced health and safety measures laid out by the Province of Ontario to keep children, their families and child care centre workers safe. On June 9, the province made the announcement that child care centres could reopen as of June 12 and released a set of guidelines that child care operators must adhere to in order to reopen safely. The guidelines can be found on the Ministry of Education’s website. Toronto Public Health launches COVID-19 monitoring dashboard The City of Toronto launched a new monitoring dashboard to provide a progress assessment for the local COVID-19 response. The dashboard summarizes the current local situation using a core set of indicators that align with Ontario’s provincial framework for reopening. The COVID-19 monitoring dashboard provides the public with a current summary on how the city is progressing in the response to COVID-19, as Toronto moves to recovery. It will also help Toronto Public Health to carefully monitor COVID-19 activity and adjust actions if the local situation changes. City of Toronto update on COVID-19 cases and enforcement As of June 13, there are 13,330 cases of COVID-19 in the city, an increase of 94 cases since yesterday. Currently, there are 303 people hospitalized, with 73 in ICU. In total, 10,981 people have recovered from COVID-19, an increase of 150 cases since yesterday. To date, there have been 982 COVID-19 deaths in Toronto. Case status data and geographic maps can be found on the City’s reporting platform. The City’s COVID-19 enforcement team remains focused on providing education about the physical distancing bylaw and provincial orders. Yesterday, the City received 32 complaints involving people using outdoor amenities or not practising physical distancing in parks or squares. Bylaw officers issued eight tickets. This month, bylaw and police officers have spoken to more than 4,400 people in City parks about the closures and public health measures.

For the latest updates from the City of Toronto, please click here.

For the latest updates from the Federal Government, please click here. 

For the latest updates from the Province of Ontario, please click here.