TORONTO -- Two city employees with Toronto’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division have tested positive for COVID-19, including one worker who had brief contact with another employee at a city-run camp in Scarborough.
In a news release issued Tuesday evening, city officials said the two employees were exposed to the disease between July 6 and July 10 outside of the workplace.
One of them had brief contact with a part-time worker at the Ellesmere Community Centre CampTO program, the city said. Officials stressed that the camp employee works in sanitation and does not come into contact with children or their families.
Toronto Public Health has said that the risk to campers is “very low.”
“No children taking part in CampTO programs, which began yesterday, July 13, have been directly exposed to the employees who have tested positive,” officials said. “The city, however, is in the process now of advising families, employees, the union, and the public and of these cases as a matter of public transparency.”
The program, which serves 11 campers, will remain active at the community centre located near Ellesmere Road and Warden Avenue.
The employees who tested positive for COVID-19 have been told to self-isolate for 14 days. Officials said that contact tracing has identified another 23 employees who have been in contact with the workers who tested positive for the novel coronavirus. None of those individuals have been in contact with children at the community centre, the city said.
Those 23 employees have been advised to get tested for COVID-19 and have been told to self-isolate for two weeks.
