As COVID-19 cases continue to climb at increased rates, the risk of another shutdown grows.
This week, Halton saw its numbers jump to 141-active cases. Milton was reported to have 24 people currently known to have COVID-19.
The first shutdown came swift and hard, and it felt like every second there was another breaking news story to top the last one. Whether it was Tom Hanks and his wife testing positive, to entire office buildings emptying in favour of working from home, to all of sports coming to a halt, life had changed in an instance.
With the possibility of that kind of situation happening again, the Executive Director of the Milton DBIA, Rachel Shuttleworth, says the last shutdown was hard enough.
It’s not uncommon for a local business to be struggling to break even during a normal year. It’s why ‘support local’ is stressed so often. During a pandemic? Those struggling businesses saw their closure go from three months away to three weeks away.
Shuttleworth says that if another shutdown happened, we could see more local businesses closing doors.
The Ford Government recently announced restrictions for Ontario. They rolled back gatherings, now limited to 25 people outdoors and 10 indoors. However, those new caps don’t extend to places such as restaurants, movie theatres, banquet halls, gyms, and convention centres. That’s because, to Ford and his government, those places already have strict protocols in place to ensure everyone’s safety. A family barbeque or a house party wouldn’t come close to being as strict as those areas or a school.
“We’re comparing apples and oranges here,” Ford says.
If you want to ensure local businesses are able to survive a second shutdown, give them your support. During the first shutdown, myFM News spoke with dozens of local businesses on a daily basis. It was a way to provide local stores and shops a chance to speak to Miltonians and inform them that they’re open and need your help. You can find those interviews and businesses here.
