Author: Councillor Brad Clark

HAMILTON, ON As of Saturday, April 3 at 12:01am

provincewide emergency brake

The emergency brake measures include:

• Restricting indoor organized public events and social gatherings, except with members of the same household (the people you live with) and limiting the capacity for outdoor events to a 5-person maximum. Individuals who live alone may consider having exclusive close contact with one other household;
• Restricting in-person shopping in all retail settings, including a 50 per cent capacity limit for supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, indoor farmers’ markets, other stores that primarily sell food and pharmacies, and 25 per cent for all other retail including big box stores, along with other public health and workplace safety measures;
• Prohibiting personal care services;
• Prohibiting indoor and outdoor dining. Restaurants, bars and other food or drink; establishments will be permitted to operate by take out, drive-through, and delivery only;
• Prohibiting the use of facilities for indoor or outdoor sports and recreational fitness (ie. gyms and fitness centres); and
• Limiting capacity at weddings, funerals, and religious services, rites or ceremonies to 15 per cent total occupancy indoors, and to the number of individuals that can maintain two metres of physical distance outdoors. This does not include social gatherings associated with these services like receptions, which are not permitted indoors and are limited to five people outdoors.

Everyone is asked to limit trips outside the home to necessities such as food, medication, medical appointments, supporting vulnerable community members, or exercising outdoors with members of their household.

The province advised that the impact of the emergency brake will be evaluated throughout the next four weeks to determine if it is safe to lift any restrictions or if they need to be extended.

The City of Hamilton’s Emergency Operations Centre and Hamilton Public Health Services are reviewing the emergency brake measures in detail to ensure local clarity and compliance while the emergency brake is in place.

Locally, the Reopening Ontario Act will continue to be assertively enforced by the City’s COVID Enforcement Team. The COVID Enforcement Team will be responding to complaints as well as proactively enforcing all the applicable regulations throughout the city.

Hamilton COVID Concierge for Businesses

• Support continues to be available to our local businesses through the Hamilton COVID Concierge for Business program
• COVID Concierge can help them navigate the impacts of the pandemic on their business  
• For more information, visit https://hamiltoncovidconcierge.ca/

Community gardens

• Community gardens are permitted to continue to operate under appropriate health and safety guidelines
• Residents can find guidelines for safely operating community gardens here: https://www.hamilton.ca/coronavirus/operating-community-gardens-safely
• Residents must maintain the appropriate physical distancing from others in the garden, avoid the use of shared tools and only attend the gardens if they are feeling well. Masks should be worn if physical distancing cannot be maintained
• Any organized “events” such as training sessions etc. held by operators of community gardens would need to be limited to five people

Neighbourhood cleanups

• Organized neighbourhood and park cleanups make take place, but must include no more than five people conducting the cleanup per site
• Participants must maintain the appropriate physical distancing from others and only attend the cleanup if they are feeling well. Masks should be worn if physical distancing cannot be maintained
• For more information, visit https://www.hamilton.ca/parks-recreation/community-environmental-initiatives/team-clean

It is important for residents to stay diligent and continue to practice public health management measures in order to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 in our community. These measures include:

• stay home if you are feeling unwell
• get tested for COVID-19 if you have symptoms or have been in close contact with a confirmed positive case of COVID-19
• limit gatherings to only members of your immediate household
• maintain a physical distance of at least 6 feet or 2 meters from others outside of your immediate household
• wear a mask or face covering indoors and outdoors when not able to maintain physical distancing
• wash hands frequently

All Hamilton COVID-19 information about restrictions, vaccines, and updates can be found at the following link:

https://www.hamilton.ca/coronavirus

It is my pleasure to provide residents my annual report. Every home in Ward 9 will receive a copy by mail in the coming two weeks. Please feel free to share this posting with your neighbours and friends.

Residents living within close proximity to Cline Park will be receiving notices this week announcing that construction work will begin March 25, 2021 and is expected to be substanially completed by June 30, 2021.

What is happening?

The Province’s online booking tool launched at the start of this week for community members 80 years of age and older to book appointments for their vaccines. As announced by the Province this morning, the online booking tool will be extended to all community members 75 years of age and older beginning Monday March 22^nd.  As the online booking tool currently only determines eligibility based on age, and transitioning from booking through SJHH, as of yesterday afternoon, all Indigenous adults in Hamilton can call the City’s COVID-19 Hotline to book a vaccination appointment.

Despite technical challenges earlier in the week, as of this morning over 8,600 eligible Hamiltonians have vaccine appointments over the coming week and there remain plenty of spots for people to book into. The link to the online booking tool is on the City’s website at www.hamilton.ca/VaccineBooking. The process is simple, all that is needed is a valid Ontario photo health card. If community members do not have access to the internet or a computer, or do not have a valid Ontario health photo card, they can call the Public Health Services COVID-19 Hotline at 905-974-9848, option 7.  Due to potential call volumes expected at the call centre, we ask that those who are calling for an appointment are patient and call back if the lines are busy.

Current Vaccine Sites

St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton’s (SJHH) West 5th COVID-19 vaccine clinic is continuing to vaccinate those in our community who are eligible by age as well as Indigenous adults, and adult chronic homecare recipients.  SJHH has now administered over 8,500 doses at this site, and if vaccine shipments continue to arrive on time, will be increasing to 1,000 doses per day next week.

FirstOntario Centre is opening this Monday as a large-scale vaccination clinic. As earlier announced, beginning this Monday, March 22nd, the FirstOntario Centre will launch as a large-scale COVID-19 vaccination clinic serving the same groups as the SJHH clinic. As for all clinics, vaccinations are available on a by-appointment only basis, there will be no option for walk-ins. This clinic is anticipated to start administering vaccines at 700 doses/day for the week of March 22nd, and when operating at its full capacity can deliver approximately 3,000 vaccines per day. As you would have seen, the City of Hamilton was pleased to welcome Ontario’s Premier, the Honourable Doug Ford and Donna Skelly, MPP for Flamborough—Glanbrook, to the FirstOntario Centre yesterday for a tour of the soon-to-be-open large-scale vaccination clinic with Mayor Eisenberger and a number of City of Hamilton designates.  We are pleased that interested Councillors were able to tour the clinic as well.

Hamilton Public Health Services’ mobile vaccine clinics are completing second doses for residents at low-risk retirement homes, and anticipate these will be completed by this Monday, March 22nd. The mobile clinic is currently confirming plans for the remainder of next week and details will be released early next week.

Pilot program vaccinating adults through primary care settings. A reminder that this pilot program started last weekend and is being managed by our primary care partners. A number of primary care settings are administering the AstraZeneca/COVISHIELD vaccine to those residents ages 60-64 (in 2021) who are in good health. Eligible residents are being contacted directly by their primary care physician’s office to book appointments if their physician is part of the pilot program. There are no other booking options for this pilot program, residents are asked to please not contact their primary care office for an appointment. By end of day Monday, it is estimated that more than 2,300 doses will have been administered through this pilot program.  With the Province’s announcement today that the AstraZeneca vaccine can now be used for all over age 60 years, our primary care partners and ourselves are working with the Province on how the pilot may change and what further amounts of vaccine might be available.

Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) fixed-site clinic has been administering vaccine to healthcare workers from hospitals and the community. Healthcare workers can register to receive an appointment by visiting www.hamilton.ca/VaccineRegistration. Starting today, these registered healthcare workers will be emailed special tokens for the provincial portal so that they can the book into the HHS clinic through the portal. To date, HHS has now administered 39,452 doses at this site, and will continue to vaccinate approximately 1,000 people per day over the coming week.

By the numbers:  doses-to-date

To date, in cooperation with our community partners, we have administered 64,100 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. As of end of day on March 22nd, it is anticipated that over 10,000 seniors in the community will have received first doses of vaccine. I am pleased to share with you that next week we will be delivering the highest volume of vaccine yet, averaging approximately 2,950 doses per day.

Additional Information

www.hamilton.ca/COVIDvaccines.