COVID-19 claims lives of two more long term care residents in Hamilton, public health says

Hamilton’s board of health has heard that there is some frustration within the business community following a tightening of restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19.

The city’s move into the “red” zone of pandemic response means gatherings are now restricted to 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors.

Councillor Tom Jackson says restaurants in his east mountain ward are “angry”, after months of complying with requirements around contact tracing, masking and customer limits.

Jackson says “they’ve done everything to try to survive”, but in light of new regulations are “unhappy and not sure where their business future will go.”

Paul Johnson, Hamilton’s emergency operations director, defended the new measures, insisting it was “time to take some stronger action.”

He points to statistics showing that over the past week, Hamilton is averaging 52 new cases of COVID-19 each day, compared with 22 cases just two weeks ago.

Johnson says the death toll is rising in vulnerable settings and “this virus is running through our city at a fairly good clip.”

Hamilton Public Health confirmed 24 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, as well as two additional deaths related to the virus, raising the city’s total to date to 67.

The latest deaths involve a man in his late 80’s and a woman in her early 60’s, both residents of Hamilton Continuing Care, where of one of the city’s most widespread outbreaks has infected 22 residents and five staff at that long term care facility.

Hamilton’s latest school-related cases involve one student at Hess Street Elementary School and one staff member at Dundas Central Elementary School.

The City of Hamilton also announced that it has cancelled fall swimming lessons and many drop-in recreation programs to comply with “red” zone requirements.

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