Grueling Lockdown has companies in Toronto at the breaking point

Photographer: Galit Rodan / Bloomberg

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Canada’s financial capital is in a pandemic closure that seems to have no end.

Toronto restaurants were ordered to close their dining halls in October, when a second wave of Covid-19s began washing the city. They have not been open since. Gyms, nail salons and hairdressers have been closed almost as much. The mayor’s hair has become so thick that it has become one conversation point on Twitter.

When spring came, there was some light hope. Restaurants were allowed to establish outdoor courtyards; it was called the hairdressing salons They could open on April 12th. Those plans were canceled Thursday when the Ontario government invoked a four-week “emergency brake” that tightens restrictions and extends them across the province to 14.7 million people.

Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford, a Conservative elected in 2018 with strong business support, called for understanding. The virus left him no choice, he said. “That decision weighs heavily on me,” he said. “I know what that means for people, being here for more than a year in this pandemic. It’s frustrating and it’s very, very difficult.”

For some business owners, the “difficult” has become despair. They are blurring the endless restrictions and slow pace of Canada’s vaccination program. In a according to the national survey of companies published in March, 10% of companies said they could continue for less than 12 months with current levels of revenue and expenditure.

Only 13.3% of the Canadian population has received at least one Covid-19 shot. In the United States, it is 30%, according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker.

Read more: Vaccine Trickle Becomes Torrent As US Eligibility Rules Expand

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has set the goal of vaccinating all adults before September. Meanwhile, the border between Canada and the United States remains closed to most travelers, as it has been threatening airlines, hotels and tourism companies with a barren second summer for more than a year.

“The spirit of the business community has changed dramatically,” said Dan Kelly, CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, a small business lobby. It has gone from accepting the necessary measures to the “rage” of the government, he said.

At lunchtime on the last days of the week, there was a sign outside Chotto Matte, a Japanese-Peruvian restaurant across the street. The headquarters of the Royal Bank of Canada, stated that the courtyard was open for food. There was no one sitting there, despite the sunny, warm spring weather.

Wall Street companies may plan to do this bring a lot of staff back to the office soon, but in Toronto, on Bay Street, the scene is quiet and is almost certain to stay that way for most of 2021.

At the Bank of Montreal headquarters, less than 10% of staff have entered the office regularly over the past year. Most people who work from home will stay there until the vaccines are widely available, Mona Malone, head of human resources at Bank of Montreal, said in an interview.

In the long run, Malone expects the bank to adopt a hybrid model, with some employees staying home part of the time. “People are missing connectivity with their colleagues, but it will be different,” Malone said. “They will not return to a previous Covid-type experience.”

Toronto banks quickly adapted to the pandemic and are now winning greater profits than before the Covid-19 as a Canadian real estate market rises. But the small businesses around them are starting to break down.

Tom Antonarakis owns two seafood restaurants in downtown Toronto and wants to download them at a reduced price. Both are located in dining areas that depend on a crowd of office workers.

“I’m in the process of trying to sell these two locations for almost 30 cents on the dollar,” Antonarakis said. “We tried to open up after the first block and then they closed us down again.” He also sold one of his two food trucks and has been operating the other from a mall on the outskirts.

Ford and senior officials acknowledge the financial pain, but say the figures justify the extension of the restrictions.

Ontario has seen about 160 new cases of virus per day per million population over the past week. It is much less than the neighbors of Michigan and New York and still well below the peak of the province’s second wave.

But Ontario hospitals have reached a new high for Covid-19 patients in intensive care this week. The problem is a new variant of the virus, known as B.1.1.7, that makes people worse.

“It’s spreading much faster than before and we can’t get vaccinated fast enough to break that third wave,” Adalsteinn Brown, a physician who is co-chair of Ontario’s Covid-19 scientific advisory board, said at a news conference Thursday.

Spike virus

A third wave of Covid-19 cases hits Ontario

Source: Government of Ontario