COVID-19 is doubling every five days in Hamilton prompting leaders to stress the need to stay home on Passover, Easter, Baisakhi and Ramadan.

“We’re having some impact,” said Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Hamilton’s medical officer of health, explaining the virus would double every two to three days if no physical-distancing measures were in place.

“It’s absolutely time to double down on these measures.”

To combat the spread of the virus, Hamilton city council passed a physical-distancing bylaw Wednesday that requires people to stay two metres away from anyone who is not a member of their household. Fines for individuals range from $500 to $25,000, while corporations face penalties of $50,000 to $100,000.

Hamilton’s bylaw is in addition to Ontario making it illegal to gather in groups of five or more people that don’t live in the same household (except in certain circumstances such as grocery stores). Celebrations among family and friends at private residences are currently not allowed under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act with fines starting at $750.

“Maintaining our collective resolve to plank the curve will be a challenge as the weather warms and the holidays approach,” Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said Wednesday.

“This is the critical time to maintain our physical distancing,” she said. “It means having dinners with household members only and connecting virtually.”

The cottage is also off limits this long weekend as rural health systems aren’t equipped for surges of patients and grocery stores only have enough stock for local residents.

“We can’t stress that enough,” said Premier Doug Ford. “They don’t have as many acute-care beds as we do here in large urban centres.”

The city announced at its weekly Wednesday online town hall that it will convert Hamilton’s largest arena, FirstOntario Centre, into a COVID-19 emergency homeless shelter.

Emergency Operations Centre director Paul Johnson said the “surge” shelter at the downtown arena will be outfitted with 50 beds to help ease the burden on city shelters that simply lack the space needed to enforce physical distancing.

City council also approved a temporary Property Tax Assistance Program on Wednesday that offers some flexibility on penalties and interest for those who are not able to pay by the April and June due dates. Burlington has passed similar measures.

The federal government had 1.72 million people apply to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit in the first two days alone and that only includes people with birthdays between January and June. Since March 15, more than four million Canadians have applied to Employment Insurance benefits.

In addition, Wednesday saw GO Transit further reduce its services and the federal government announce changes to the Canada Summer Jobs program to help students get employment through to the winter.

Maple Leaf Foods reported a case of COVID-19 at the Heritage plant in Hamilton.

“The affected team member had not been present at the plant for two weeks before the diagnosis,” said a company statement Wednesday. “We’ve completed thorough sanitation at Heritage and the plant is fully operating.”

Hamilton’s confirmed cases climbed by 15 to 198 on Wednesday. Nearly one-quarter have now been acquired via community spread of the virus.

Seven of Hamilton’s cases are children and teens.

Those at highest risk are the nearly 45 per cent with co-morbidities and the one-quarter of cases aged 65 or older.

All of Hamilton’s five deaths have been in seniors aged 80 to 100 with three from the outbreak at Heritage Green Nursing Home in Stoney Creek and one from Cardinal Retirement Residence on Herkimer Street.

Those outbreaks continued to spread with Heritage Green now having 11 confirmed cases in residents and three in staff. At Cardinal, it’s 16 residents ill and five staff.

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There are also outbreaks in staff at Wentworth Lodge in Dundas and in the special care nursery at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton that cares for sick and premature babies.

Nearly 40 per cent of Hamilton’s cases have resolved, meaning they got better.

“The world is in a difficult place,” federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu said Wednesday. “We’re trying as best as we can to beat a global pandemic — a virus (for) which there is no cure and no vaccine.”

Across Ontario there has been 174 deaths, including two in Halton and six in Haldimand and Norfolk.

Halton now has 228 cases — including 49 in Burlington — while Six Nations has nine cases. There are 110 cases in Haldimand and Norfolk with many of them being connected to an outbreak at long-term care home Anson Place in Hagersville.

Ontario now has 5,276 confirmed cases of COVID-19, up from 4,726 on Tuesday. But only high-priority groups are being tested, which Ford said is going to change.

“What is absolutely unacceptable are the number of tests we’re doing,” Ford said about the current number of roughly 3,000 a day.

“No more excuses,” he said. “We say we can do 13,000 a day then we need to start doing 13,000 every single day.”

After recommending earlier this week that people protect others by wearing homemade masks when going out in case they have COVID-19 and don’t know it, Tam clarified that some vulnerable groups should not cover their faces.

“In particular face coverings could present a suffocation risk to babies and children under the age of two,” she said.

In addition, it’s dangerous for, “anyone who has difficulty breathing and others who are unable to remove the mask by themselves.”

A day after Hamilton’s hospitals outlined drastic reductions to their services to clear hundreds of beds for COVID-19 patients, the federal health minister called it “tremendous sacrifices.”

“These are difficult, heart-wrenching decisions,” said Hajdu. “They are not taken lightly.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that even after the peak it will be a slow, gradual easing-off of physical distancing and “even as things are able to start to get back to normal they won’t be back to normal.”