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Toronto cops won't break up parties or do their job during a pandemic
‘We don’t go to break up parties…it’s not safe for our officers’: COVID-19 cases are rising. So why isn’t there a tougher crackdown on rule-breakers?

Your neighbour is having a party. There are cars parked down the block and people knocking on their door bearing steaks for the barbecue.

You reach for the phone. You know about the new city bylaws, the ones enacted to keep people safe from COVID-19, and the provincial orders banning indoor gatherings of more than 50 people and outdoor gatherings of more than 100.

You call 311. Maybe you imagine a SWAT team of bylaw enforcement officers showing up at your neighbour’s door. Or the police.

In fact, there is a good chance that, in Toronto, nothing will happen.

Although several new municipal bylaws and provincial orders have gone onto the books since March, when the city began taking aggressive steps to stem the spread of COVID-19, enforcing them has proven difficult.

Meanwhile, the number of infections among those under 40 has continued to rise since Toronto entered Stage 3 on July 31, part of a growing second wave that could see more people infected than the first, according to some scientific modelling.

There were 74 new infections in the city on Friday, up from an average of 13 cases a day in the last week of July. At its peak in May, Toronto saw an average of 230 cases daily.

Public health officials this week blamed part of the increase on people socializing outside of their bubbles and getting together without face masks.

“We don’t go to break up parties … it’s not safe for our officers,” said Carleton Grant, executive director of Toronto municipal licensing and standards (MLS). Grant is in charge of the city’s 200 bylaw control officers, who have been called on to enforce complex new bylaws and regulations, some of which have shifted as the city moved into and out of lockdown.

By necessity, the rules have changed a lot since the lockdown began in March and have proven slippery for everyone to fully understand, Grant said. “The social distancing one was a lot, and it was hard.”

Parks were closed, their parking lots roped off. People were allowed to walk through parks. But they were ticketed for doing chin-ups on park equipment and even for sitting on park benches.

Then picnics were allowed. Sitting on benches was allowed.

And how does a bylaw officer sort out whether people together in a group really are from the same household without asking a lot of probing questions, the kind that make people push back?

“Enforcement is — it may seem simple — it’s very complex, it is very process-oriented. You need to have everything in place if you are to lay a charge.”

Grant said trying to shut down a house party is something that could quickly escalate, putting the safety of bylaw officers at risk.

For one thing, a person hosting a house party where people aren’t maintaining a safe distance from one another has already made a decision to break the rules. How likely are they to start complying when a bylaw control officer shows up?

“It’s a potentially difficult situation that you would be facing,” said Grant, adding that bylaw officers are not first responders. But police have more serious calls to attend to.
Click to expand...
 
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Yall tet the Popeyes chicken sandwich yet? Tastes the exact same from the time I had it back in January when I visited the states. :wow:

They just put a whole big ass chicken breast in that bytch :mjlit:
 
richtree

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Cycloneon said:
Yall tet the Popeyes chicken sandwich yet? Tastes the exact same from the time I had it back in January when I visited the states. :wow:

They just put a whole big ass chicken breast in that bytch :mjlit:
Click to expand...

Just copped one for lunch, that bun was greasy as shyt!
Would cop again :banderas:
 
thatrapsfan

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Good news from Spain, which has had a huge uptick in cases over the past two months. Deaths remain flat, as cases remain focused on younger demographic. Could be the same trend here.
 
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thatrapsfan said:


Good news from Spain, which has had a huge uptick in cases over the past two months. Deaths remain flat, as cases remain focused on younger demographic. Could be the same trend here.
Click to expand...

Understood
But
More cases spreading in the community results in more opportunities for death, lasting health effects on the infected.

Death may not be immediate or increasing, but who knows what the effects may be.

Lagging indicator...wait until end of this month/early Oct.

We have to tread carefully and govt better be ready to revert back stages.
 
thatrapsfan

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jdubnyce said:
Understood
But
More cases spreading in the community results in more opportunities for death, lasting health effects on the infected.

Death may not be immediate or increasing, but who knows what the effects may be.

Lagging indicator...wait until end of this month/early Oct.

We have to tread carefully and govt better be ready to revert back stages.
Click to expand...
In the Spain example, its not an issue of lagging indicators. Their rise in cases started in early August. Enough time to definitively say that deaths have not followed in a similar pattern as in the Spring.

One thing that is easy to forget, is that all respiratory viruses, including influenza and pneumonia have severe cases that cause long lasting symptons. What is novel about coronavirus is that no one has immunity to it until exposed, hence the ease of its spread, but there is yet to be any definitive evidence that it has an exceptional affect on the general population (whether through long lasting effects or otherwise).

Most of the reporting we are hearing about "long-haul COVID" is almost entirely reliant on anecdote rather than scientific study. Just take the stories about cardiac affects for example: IMO if we follow the Spain (and much of Europe's) trajectory and deaths and hospitalizations remain flat, its a good news story.

Also another thing to consider, is that we were only testing people with significant symptons back in April/March. Now anyone who needs a test can get one and testing has been way up since June. It is highly likely we missed thousands of mild and asymptomatic cases back then.
 
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