TORONTO -- Toronto’s top doctor is warning residents not to gather with people outside their households for the holidays, but a new poll says many across the province do not plan to heed the advice, despite the rising number of COVID-19 infections.
Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's medical officer of health, made the comments at a news conference on Monday, saying that the situation remains dire and the virus is “aggressively” spreading like never before.
“This year cannot be as usual. December is seven days along and we have reported just slightly more than 4,100 new cases of COVID-19 and 68 deaths from it,” de Villa said told reporters. “The case counts are so high that I can only call this a very, very serious situation. There is no way to argue otherwise. COVID-19 is spreading aggressively in Toronto.”
“In our own lives, risky in-home festivities will easily make things worse. Contact between people, especially from December 24 to New Year's Day could easily amplify the number of infections we are seeing right now.”
Angus Reid Institute’s new poll found that about 27 per cent of residents in Ontario residents plan to visit friends and family locally and another eight per cent say they plan to visit people in another community or out of province.
Their plans blatantly go against the provincial health advice, which asks people only to spend the holidays with their immediate families members who they live with, and not to leave the province for Christmas celebrations.
“The guidance from the province advises that the safest way to spend the holidays this year is by celebrating only in-person with the people you live with and celebrating virtually with everybody else,” de Villa said. “If you live alone, consider exclusively celebrating with one additional household.
“I do not believe that it is safe to do otherwise. I do not believe that it is worth it to do otherwise. I can't be any plainer than that.”
On Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters at a news conference that people wanting to drive to their secondary residences and cottages for the holidays in other cities and towns can still do so, but they must take precautions.
He stressed that they must complete all their shopping and buy all their food in their original home cities, and should plan to not leave the secondary residence.
Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott echoed the premier’s advice on Monday and said that residents must take precautions so that further community transmission is not brought into communities that have low numbers of infection.
She also advised people only to gather with those they live with for the holidays, whether they are in their primary or secondary residences.
“Please try to limit your holidays with just members of your own household. Please do not have big family parties. Please do not go to big get-togethers,” she said.
“All that just increases community transmission and we're really trying to get those numbers down so that we can get Toronto and Peel out of lockdown and some of the other areas into lower levels so that we can start living more normally.”
The province is also advising university students to first self-quarantine or reduce close contact with people on campus for 14 days before arriving to their homes for the holidays.
Ontario reported a record-breaking number of 1,925 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Monday and also reported that 26 more people died due disease. The Angus Reid poll found that people across the province are feeling an increasing amount of anxiety around the surging infection numbers.
