Hamilton has had its first death from COVID-19 after an 80-year-old resident from Heritage Green Nursing Home died in hospital.

“Today is a tough day,” Paul Johnson, director of Hamilton’s Emergency Operations Centre, said at a media briefing Tuesday. “When you receive the first confirmation that as a community someone has passed away, it hits home.”

Johnson pointed out that the woman did not travel and is one of two Hamilton cases to have contracted COVID-19 through community spread.

“It is a lesson that this community is not immune from this,” Mayor Fred Eisenberger said while passing his condolences to the family.

“We are going to to be affected by this,” he said. “We may very well have more casualties as a result of this. To try to minimize that, we need to take these very important physical distancing steps.”

Eight people have now died in Ontario from COVID-19, including 51-year-old Sean Cunnington from Milton.

“We continue to see increasing numbers,” Dr. Bart Harvey, an associate medical officer of health in Hamilton, said about confirmed cases. “Assume every person you are around and every person you potentially interact with are infected.”

Hamilton had three new cases Tuesday bringing the confirmed total to 35, while Halton had one to increase its total to 15.

Halton’s latest case is an Oakville woman in her 70s who has been hospitalized.

The municipality is also warning that a Burlington man waiting for test results had symptoms of COVID-19 on two flights — Air Canada Flight 8218 from Cranbrook to Vancouver on March 11 and Air Canada Flight 106 from Vancouver to Toronto on March 12.

Hamilton has had four people hospitalized as of Tuesday — one who was discharged from Hamilton General Hospital, one at St. Joseph’s Healthcare on Charlton Avenue East, and another in an unidentified hospital.

The first hospitalized patient in Hamilton was the woman who died Tuesday morning at St. Joseph’s.

She was one of two residents from the same floor of Heritage Green to test positive for COVID-19, prompting public health to declare an outbreak at the Stoney Creek long-term care centre. The other resident is isolated at the home at 353 Isaac Brock Dr.

There is now a massive backlog of more than 10,000 pending tests in the province as of Tuesday, raising questions about how many in Ontario actually have COVID-19.

Provincewide, there were at least 588 confirmed cases as of 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 24, up from 503 on Monday.

The West End Clinic and King Campus urgent care centres have assessed 794 visits since March 16 and tested 167 people since March 19.

The city closed Albion Falls and asked people to use escarpment stairs for essential purposes only, such as going to work.

Hamilton Conservation Authority shut its locations to the public — including to membership holders — starting Wednesday because of concerns that too many people continued to gather there.

“No one is immune from this.” said Eisenberger. “For those who think they’re going to be OK, ‘Let’s just go out and do what we do normally’ … don’t do it. You’re wrong.”

The city has 115 staff in self-isolation after international travel and 85 per cent of its staff are now working from home.

To get in line with provincially mandated closures of essential services on Wednesday, the city will no longer issue parking tickets at street meters or its lots (excluding Hamilton Convention Centre and the York Boulevard parking garage).

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“This is not a wide open call to park anywhere you want in the community,” said Johnson. “We will continue to enforce parking violations that are considered to be around safety or community concern.”

The city is no longer processing permits for movies or television shows to film in Hamilton.

But Johnson said building permits are still required with no exemptions.

For the safety of its workers, the city won’t be collecting yard waste and wants tissues and napkins to go in the garbage instead of the green bin. Liner bags should be used for compost and garbage needs to be bagged and not kept loose in bins. Residents are asked not to approach city workers.

Three emergency child-care centres are opening up with limited space for ages 12 months to 12 years — one with Today’s Family and two with Wee Watch. The care is free for essential-service workers such as health care, police, fire, paramedics, public health, long-term care, correctional and HSR. Small in-home daycares are also being permitted.

When it comes to help for businesses from the provincial and federal government, Eisenberger said, “Even though we all want this money to flow quickly, it takes some time ... so some patience is necessary.”

He defended Hamilton’s decision not to declare a state of emergency as other communities have, including Burlington and Halton.

“We are all, by virtue of the province’s declaration, in a state of emergency,” he said. “There is no funding advantage or policy advantage that comes out of making a declaration ... If we were to do it now, it’s just optics or politics.”

The province gave broad powers to long-term care centres to redeploy staff, cancel vacations and recall leaves, similar to what has already been provided to hospitals.

It also announced Tuesday it’s suspending time-of-use electricity rates for 45 days to help families and small businesses struggling during the COVID-19 crisis.

The United Way of Halton and Hamilton has created an emergency fund at UWHH.ca.

And the city has partnered with all social service agencies in Hamilton to help the homeless and marginalized. It is funding a number of organizations to provide drop-in centres at expanded hours. There are also 40 to 50 hotel rooms the city can use.

The city will hold a virtual town hall at 7 p.m. on Wednesday that will be broadcast on Cable 14 or at youtube.com/insidecityofhamilton.