Do not go to your friend’s house for dinner tonight.

That was the blunt message from Dr. Eileen de Villa at city hall on Wednesday afternoon as the number of positive COVID-19 cases in Toronto continued to rise. The city’s medical officer of health is asking residents to do more to practise social distancing as health-care workers braced for additional cases in the first week of a provincial emergency.

De Villa reported seven new cases in Toronto as of Wednesday afternoon and an increase in local transmission — 11 cases are now under investigation. Those 11 cases, she said, cannot be traced to any kind of recent travel.

“We are new to social distancing, so I want to be perfectly clear: Having your friends over for dinner or for coffee is not social distancing,” de Villa said at a regularly scheduled briefing. “Arranging play dates for your children is also not social distancing. Visiting friends or family in long-term care homes or hospital is not social distancing. Stopping at a grocery store to stock up after travel — including travel to the United States — is not social distancing.”

De Villa took most of her time at the microphone on Wednesday to stress the need for all residents to follow her advice and that of other health professionals. She outlined good practices, asking everyone to make every effort to follow them.

“Social distancing means keeping six feet apart to help prevent virus spread. Social distancing means staying home and only going out for the absolute essential needs like food or medicine. Social distancing means reducing contact with others. Social distancing means working from home. Social distancing means helping your employees to either stay home or to work from home. Social distancing means doing your grocery shopping online or maybe having somebody else do your groceries for you.”

When asked how Toronto is faring compared to other global cities and regions, de Villa said: “You can never really tell the story until the end.”

She said places like Italy and Iran are clearly further along than Canada in terms of the outbreak rate, but that Toronto is now seeing a “steep” incline of cases over time.

“We are just at the beginning of that increase.”

She said other jurisdictions have proven social distancing works to reduce the spread of the virus, citing China, Singapore and South Korea. “But just like any other medicine or treatment,” she said, “it has to be applied appropriately, in the right dose, for the right amount of time.”

“The extent to which that curve peaks, how high that peak is, all depends on how effective we are at social distancing,” de Villa said, noting it’s not yet clear how long social distancing measures will need to be in place.

“The power to change the story is entirely in our hands.”

De Villa said Wednesday they were amazed to see the level of compliance by businesses with provincial orders to close.

On Tuesday, hours after bars were directed to shutter along with dine-in services at restaurants, de Villa said staff went out to survey compliance and found just four per cent of those businesses observed had not yet closed.

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“But we can still do better,” she said.

Also on Wednesday, the city announced additional changes to non-essential city services, including the closure of one city-run animal shelter and reduced hours at two others, as well as the suspension of all non-emergency building, bylaw and Toronto Public Health inspections.

And Mayor John Tory announced Toronto Police will suspend parking enforcement in on-street permit parking areas, when on-street time limits are exceeded, in areas subject to the North York winter maintenance bylaw, of expired validation for licence plates, of boulevard parking and in school zones.

In a statement, Tory encouraged people to continue paying for parking, calling it the “right thing to do.”