COVID-19: Business owners welcome customers as Ontario enters Step 3 – Ottawa Sun

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Hungry customers were lined up outside John’s Diner on Wellington Street at 5:30 a.m. Friday, when the venerable Westboro eatery opened for breakfast.

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“It’s been steady all day,” said Tony Fatoum, who runs the restaurant with his father, the namesake John, and brother Paul.

“The customers are quite relieved. They’re saying ‘It’s a good thing we’re not outside anymore.’ It was always too hot, or too sunny or too rainy.”

John’s never had a formal patio option, but during the shutdown Tony would put out chairs from his own house for customers to use.

He jokes “it helped me build my core strength” but he’s glad to be serving customers inside again.

Movie screens are another business reopening Friday for the first time in months.

“What a joy it is to get back to the routine of posting daily showtimes! Looking forward to seeing our patrons today after what seems like years (actually about 120 days)” the Mayfair Theatre tweeted Friday.

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It reopens with a screening of the documentary The Specials and a limited capacity of 95 patrons.

Meanwhile, Heather Andrews, co-owner of Wheelhouse Cycle spin studio, said gymgoers were eager to return to the bikes on Friday, with a full house on hand for a noon-hour class — the second of four classes on the day.

“It seems like people are feeling very comfortable and are very laid back,” she said in a phone interview from the studio’s location near City Centre.

While Wheelhouse has offered online classes since shortly after the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Andrews said clients have expressed to her how mentally challenging it’s been to be away from the studio and its community.

“I think we’re … so grateful to be able to be together and finally move our bodies like that.

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‘We (did) some things online, but the general message has been … this is really hard mentally more so than physically. Not being able to move my body and and be around my community.”

“People feel hopeful that their mental health is going to start to improve.”

Andrews said she felt a surge of energy in welcoming back people to the studio

“Speaking for myself, I felt so alive today.

“I think folks are hoping it will just get better and better from here so that we can actually … not wear masks, so that we can actually really make those connections.”

At the Flora Hall brewpub in Centretown, preparations are underway to welcome indoor dining for the first time since early spring.

With Step 3 starting Friday, the restaurant is combining its indoor and outdoor dining spaces to see how customers respond, according to owner Dave Longbottom.

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While Flora Hall boasts a large covered outdoor dining space, Longbottom said everybody is “pretty excited about the prospect” of returning to indoor dining.

“It’s the freedom… and the ability to choose — I think that’s appealing to people most after such a difficult several months,” he explained.

It also means that restaurants will no longer have to worry about inclement weather upending plans to welcome customers. And while Longbottom is welcoming the move to Step 3, he acknowledged that the transition process and changes in rules between these reopening phases have created challenges for staff.

“This is yet another transition and people get stressed by the change because it’s complicated. We still got to enforce all of the protocols and rules required of us by Ottawa public health but in yet another new configuration. I think that’s where the stress comes for the staff.”

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Gym owner Jeff Christison wasn’t there when his customers started showing up for their workouts Friday morning. He’d been up late the night before, visiting each of his nine Anytime Fitness locations programming the automated doors to allow clients access again.

Government subsidies helped him weather the COVID-19 shutdown, when many of his clients cancelled or suspended their memberships. But he’s glad the doors are open again.

“I opened the businesses to stay in business,” Christison said. “If there’s things that we have to do to keep the population safe from the virus, we’ll do that.”

Under Step 3 of the province’s reopening protocols, the gym can now have up to 50 per cent of capacity, based on floorspace.

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That’s fairer than the pre-shutdown rules that limited capacity to no more than 50 people, he said. Christison can control capacity by programming a set number of allowable door swipes by members’ key fobs. And he’s optimistic.

“I’ve seen what’s happened around the globe with our company and I know that the health and wellness industry has really bounced back strong,” Christison said.

“People have realized the importance of being healthy.”

Ottawa Public Health corrected its COVID-19 case count on Friday, reporting minus-one new cases.

(Cases are sometimes removed after data cleanups.)

There are just 21 active cases in the city and, for the second day in a row, there were no COVID-19 patients in hospital.

The death toll remained unchanged at 593 since the pandemic began.

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The seven-day reproductive rate, R(t) rate fell to 0.62. Anything lower than 1.0 indicates the infection is subsiding.

As of Friday, 82 per cent of people over the age of 12 had received one dose, while 60 per cent are fully vaccinated. For those 18 years and over, 82 per cent had one dose, and 62 per cent were fully. For the entire population, the rates were 72 per cent and 52 per cent.

The OPH is continuing its drop-in vaccine program this weekend at select community clinics.

Every community clinic accepts drop-ins for first doses.

Second dose drop-ins are available between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the following locations Friday, Saturday and Sunday:

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The list of locations is updated daily on ottawapublichealth.ca

Latest COVID-19 news in Ontario

Two professional groups representing health-care workers in Ontario are calling for mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for the sector.

Statements from the Ontario Medical Association and the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario came the day after Premier Doug Ford said he wouldn’t make the vaccine mandatory.

Dr. Adam Kassam, president of the medical association, said Friday that vaccination is the best way to control the pandemic and protect patients.

The nurses’ group said Ford is on the wrong side of science and called for mandatory shots.

Ford said on Thursday that he encourages people to be vaccinated but thinks they should have the right to refuse the shot.He has also rejected the idea of an Ontario “vaccine passport” system.

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Ontario reported 159 new cases of COVID-19 Friday, the day the province entered Step 3 of its gradual reopening program.

There were 10 new deaths reported, bringing the toll to 9,285 since the pandemic began.

Friday’s numbers include 34 new cases in Grey Bruce, 25 in Waterloo, 23 in Toronto and 12 in Peel Region. More than 168,000 vaccine doses were administered Thursday, bringing the total to 17.8 million for the province.

There are 159 people in hospital, 158 in intensive care and 112 on ventilators.

There were no new cases reported in Eastern Ontario’s five public health units, including Ottawa, the province reported.

Most of the remaining social and business restrictions could be lifted in Ontario as soon as 21 days from now.

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According to the province, step 3 conditions will apply until 80 per cent of the eligible provincial population aged 12 and over has received one dose of a COVID-19 and 75 per cent have received their second, with no public health unit having less than 70 per cent of their eligible population aged 12 and over fully vaccinated.

Latest COVID-19 news in Quebec

Quebec is offering $2 million in cash prizes and student bursaries to encourage more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Health Minister Christian Dubé and Finance Minister Eric Girard said the Loto-Québec system will be split into prizes for adults and for children aged 12 to 17, who will need to register on the government’s online vaccine-appointment portal to be eligible to win.

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Girard said the government will draw names every Friday in August, and the grand prize will be drawn Sept. 3, adding that any vaccinated Quebecers can start registering to be part of the lottery on July 25, regardless of when they received their shots.

Adults who have had at least one dose will be eligible to win a weekly cash prize of $150,000, and adults with two doses will be eligible to win the grand prize of $600,000 on Sept. 3.

Children aged 12 to 17 with one dose of COVID-19 vaccine will be eligible each Friday in August to win two student bursaries worth $10,000 each, and fully vaccinated children will be in the running for 16 bursaries worth $20,000 each for the final draw on Sept. 3.

Meanwhile, health officials are reporting 83 new COVID-19 cases today and three more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, none of which occurred in the past 24 hours.

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Officials say hospitalizations rose by three, to 84, and 25 people were in intensive care, a rise of two.

More than 82 per cent of Quebecers 12 and older have received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 52 per cent are considered adequately vaccinated. The province says 99,852 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered Thursday.

Latest COVID-19 news nationally

Travel to and from the U.S. may resume soon, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying Thursday that the federal government is aiming to allow fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents into Canada again by as early as mid-August.

And if the current vaccination rate remains on its upward trajectory, fully vaccinated travellers from around the world could begin arriving by early September, Trudeau told the premiers.

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The news was quietly disclosed in the final paragraphs of a readout from the Prime Minister’s Office of his call with the provinces and territories to discuss the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The prime minister noted that, if our current positive path of vaccination rate and public health conditions continue, Canada would be in a position to welcome fully vaccinated travellers from all countries by early September,” it reads.

“He noted the ongoing discussions with the United States on reopening plans, and indicated that we could expect to start allowing fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents into Canada as of mid-August for non-essential travel.”

Pressure has been mounting on the federal government to continue to ease the restrictions at the border, which have been in effect since March of last year.

But as Trudeau is widely believed to be on his way to triggering a federal election campaign, the timing of reopening the border could be a factor in his thinking.

The province administered 101,415 doses of vaccine in the past 24 hours, for a total of 9,853, 761 since the pandemic began.

— With files from The Canadian Press