Toronto reactivates Emergency Operations Centre in response to COVID-19 Omicron variant
Posted December 17, 2021 7:17 am.
The City of Toronto has reactivated its Emergency Operations Centre in anticipation of a projected surge in COVID-19 cases connected to the Omicron variant.
The Emergency Operations Centre requires each City division and agency to assign representatives to the team to make “timely decisions based on their respective operational areas.” The team ensures critical and essential services continue to operate for residents and businesses.
The centre will convene remotely as it did during its first activation at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic on March 23, 2020.
Fire Chief Matthew Pegg will continue to serve as the General Manager of the Office of the Emergency Management and as Toronto’s COVID-19 incident commander.
The Ontario Science Table projected the province could hit 10,000 cases per day if “circuit breaker” measures were not brought in. They are asking residents to reduce their contacts by 50 per cent.
Toronto reported 755 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, an increase from the 498 reported Wednesday and 232 on the same day last week.
Mayor John Tory said in a news release that since the start of the pandemic, Toronto has taken important and timely steps to protect the health of residents and “the reactivation of the Emergency Operations Centre is the prudent and right thing to do right now so that we can continue to do everything we can as a City government to protect the health of residents, the health of our economy and our health care system.”
Ontario has so far introduced capacity restrictions on venues holding over 1,000 people and expanded boosters to those 18 years of age and older starting Dec. 20 in response to the Omicron variant.
