Coronavirus: Latest developments in the Greater Toronto Area on Feb. 17

Here are the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic in the Greater Toronto Area for Wednesday.

For nearly a year, medical professionals and politicians have been asking Canadians to stay home and work remotely where possible.

The public health message has sparked a massive shift across the workforce.

Kara Kennedy owns a clothing and consignment shop in midtown Toronto called Little White Sneakers. She said the business model has changed dramatically within the past year.

“When I look back a year ago, 25 per cent of our sales were online, now 100 per cent of our sales are online,” Kennedy said.

The medical officers of health for Toronto and Peel Region have written a letter to the province requesting that their respective municipalities remain in shutdown until at least March 9.

Toronto medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa said COVID-19 variants pose a serious risk and as such restrictions should not be loosened for the time being.

“I have never been as worried about the future as I am today,” De Villa said during a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

“The variants of concern mean we face a deceptively dangerous situation. Right now, the case counts don’t look so bad, they don’t sound bad, but today’s variant count is the tip of an iceberg.”

Peel Region’s medical officer of health says he would like to see the region wait two more weeks for reopening to assess the COVID-19 situation as schools resume in-person learning and rising variant cases.

Dr. Lawrence Loh said that although the original COVID-19 virus strain first detected in the community in 2020 is now declining, variant cases in the region are accelerating.

In the span of seven days, Loh said the number of confirmed variant cases jumped to 45 from five. He said more than 200 additional samples still need to undergo further testing and confirmation, but noted he is “almost positive all 200 of those could be confirmed as variants of concern” soon.

“Can we reassess our anticipated return to the provincial framework?” Loh remarked on Wednesday during his weekly briefing on COVID-19 in Brampton.

2:43 Toronto and Peel Region push back on provincial COVID-19 reopening plan

After 36 hours in a Scarborough hospital caring for COVID-19 patients, Dr. Martin Betts will get to go home to his 15-month-old son Max.

“My day started at 5:45 this morning when my son got up. I checked in with all three physicians that were on call last night to see how many patients were admitted … we have about 90 patients in the ICU between the three sites,” he said.

Betts, who is the corporate chief and medical director of the network’s critical care program, and his team meet with families of each patient virtually to provide them with daily updates on top of caring for new patients brought into the Scarborough Health Network’s (SHN) intensive care units. SHN consists of three sites: Scarborough General Hospital, Centenary Hospital and Birchmount Hospital.

He told Global News while the flow of the ICU is the same as before the pandemic, the volume of patients the team is managing and the complexity of those patients has increased significantly, resulting in a much higher number of consecutive workweeks.

3:33 Global News goes inside busy Scarborough hospital

Toronto’s proof-of-concept COVID-19 vaccination clinic at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre reopened to administer second doses to a select group of health-care workers this week.

Matthew Pegg, the general manager of emergency management for the City of Toronto, said there were “no issues” identified when administering second doses.

However, Pegg said the city has still not received direction from the province as to when community-based vaccination clinics in Toronto will be able to open.

Last month, the clinic at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre stopped administering first doses just days after opening due to a shortage of vaccines.

Ontario reported a total of 847 new cases on Wednesday.

Of those:

• 257 were in Toronto
• 170 were in Peel Region
• 131 were in York Region
• 30 were in Durham Region
• 12 were in Halton Region

Ontario is reporting 847 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, bringing the provincial total to 288,583.

Wednesday’s case count is also the lowest case count since Feb. 2, when 745 new cases were reported but the government said that day was an underestimation due to data system migration. Prior to that, it is the lowest daily increase since the end of October.

The death toll in the province has risen to 6,729 as 10 more deaths were reported — the lowest single-day increase since Dec. 1 when seven deaths were reported.

Resolved cases increased by 1,456 from the previous day. The government said 33,977 tests were processed in the last 24 hours.

Cases, deaths and outbreaks in Ontario long-term care homes

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, there have been 3,728 deaths reported among residents and patients in long-term care homes across Ontario which is an increase of 11 deaths. A discrepancy in long-term care home deaths by the ministry and the province’s daily death count can be the result of delays in reporting or when the data is pulled.

Eleven virus-related deaths in total have been reported among staff.

There are 155 current outbreaks in homes, which is a decrease of 15 from the previous day.

The ministry also indicated there are currently 210 active cases among long-term care residents and 333 active cases among staff — down by 59 cases and down by 58 cases, respectively, in the last day.

— With files from Caryn Lieberman and Katherine Ward

1:32 Toronto strangers come together in pandemic music video