A staff member leaves long-term care home Wellesley Central Place in Toronto on Nov. 4, 2021.J.P. MOCZULSKI/The Globe and Mail
Canada’s most populous city is ending the municipal emergency it declared over the COVID-19 pandemic.
Toronto Mayor John Tory says he’s “very happy” to be declaring the end of the municipal emergency that took effect on March 23, 2020.
Tory says the declaration allowed the city to redeploy some 1,700 public employees to shelters, long-term care homes and other priority areas that required extra support during the pandemic.
Despite terminating the emergency order, Tory warns that the pandemic is not over and says the city will continue its vaccination efforts, receive public health guidance from the city’s top doctor and offer recovery supports as it keeps up the fight against COVID-19.
The city’s top doctor, Dr. Eileen de Villa, says Toronto’s COVID-19 indicators are either decreasing or holding stable this week, and that she’s “encouraged” to see signs of improvement in Toronto’s health system capacity as well as in weekly case rates, per cent positivity and wastewater signals.
She says these are “positive signs” that, coupled with warmer weather, suggest COVID-19 activity in the city will continue to decrease.
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