

Chris Herhalt, CP24.com





Toronto Mayor John Tory says they still do not have a firm date for when to begin re-opening the city as the pandemic subsides, with the city staff holding a major meeting on the subject tomorrow.

“We don’t have a date,” Tory told CP24 on Friday. “We have to just keep working on the physical distancing and so on to make sure that date come sooner rather than later – but we don’t have a date and nor does (Trump),” referring to the U.S. president’s three-phase plan to allow states to decide when to re-open.

Tory said that Saturday’s meeting will attempt to answer the question of how they coordinate resuming city operations with how to instruct businesses on when and how to re-open, and what that may look like.

“For instance, do you open all the restaurants entirely at the same time? Or do you open half the restaurants and if so how do you decide which ones open,” Tory said. “Or do you open all of the restaurants but say they can only be half full or a third full to allow you to have some degree of physical spacing.”

Ontario’s emergency measures enacted due to COVID-19 next expire on May 11.

The measures ban sit-down restaurant service, most retailer operations, and a host of other business activity deemed non-essential, including some manufacturing and services as hairdressers, barber shops and nail salons.

The city has closed its libraries, recreation centres, and even its playgrounds to reduce the risk of spread of COVID-19.

People who do not live in the same household who come within two metres of each other in public spaces are subject to fines.

Tory said the approach to unwind all the restrictive measures is almost as complicated as the process was to enact all of them.

“It’s almost as complicated to have a plan to reopen the city as it is to manage the city today,” he said.

Toronto has 2,881 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, with 147 deaths and 161 people who have recovered.