Toronto might create a central quarantine facility for people with COVID-19
If you or someone you know lives in a house packed with roommates and are wondering how you would possibly quarantine if you (god forbid) somehow contracted COVID-19, the city may soon have you covered.
Toronto is considering following the lead of locales like Miami and L.A. in opening up a special quarantine facility for people infected with COVID-19 who don't have a place to safely isolate themselves.
Toronto’s Board of Health is meeting this morning at 9:30am. On the agenda:
— Joe Cressy (@joe_cressy) July 2, 2020
-our proposal to open COVID isolation facilities for people who can’t safely isolate at home.
-a detailed presentation of socio-demographic COVID, including an analysis of income, race & occupation.
The city's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, is making the official recommendation today after studying the demographics of the communicable disease in Toronto and finding that the hardest-hit neighbourhoods are lower-income areas where, among other factors, extended families sometimes live in very close quarters.
The concept is already being employed in cities around the globe, including in 20 locations across the U.S.
There are also currently two Toronto hotels that are operating as COVID-19 recovery sites for residents who have the virus and are also experiencing homelessness, and thus have nowhere to go to quarantine.
Meanwhile, the federal government has been putting recent international travelers without proper self-isolation plans into such centres since April to ensure they don't put other members of the public at risk.
Toronto needs isolation support facilities in #SDOH neighbourhoods including NW&NE GTA hotspots @KateMMulligan @joe_cressy these have been historically important for centuries of infection control - why not now? https://t.co/83k2GqGUKG
— Helen Batty (@hbelfry) June 6, 2020
The motion will be voted on by Toronto's board of health today, and if it passes, will require funding assistance from either the Province or Ottawa to come to fruition.
.jpg){kind=link}