{"id":26318,"date":"2020-04-09T18:27:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T22:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26318"},"modified":"2020-04-16T15:14:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:14:06","slug":"81-year-old-man-is-auroras-first-covid-19-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/81-year-old-man-is-auroras-first-covid-19-death\/","title":{"rendered":"81-year-old man is Aurora\u2019s first COVID-19 death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An 81-year-old man is Aurora\u2019s first death related to\nCOVID-19, the Region of York announced Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man, whose case was travel-related, was the 13th<\/sup>\nreported instance. He died Friday, April 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn behalf of all residents, I extend our deepest\ncondolences to the family and loved ones,\u201d said Mayor Tom Mrakas in a statement\nfollowing the man\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite another fatal case of COVID-19 in York Region,\nDr. Karim Kurji, York Region\u2019s Medical Officer of Health, began the week on a\npositive note, stating he was \u201ccautiously optimistic that we may actually be\nreaching our peak or the plateau in York Region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, there are still some pockets in York Region where\nthe trajectory is high, particularly in Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Newmarket to\na lesser extent. It is very important for folks who think they might have\nCOVID-19-like symptoms self-isolate themselves, take the self-assessment tool.\nWe can now have three assessment centres in York Region that are loosening\ntheir criteria for testing, so find out how to get there and what the processes\nare from our website (York.ca), get yourselves assessed and possibly tested,\nand we will be able to make sure that we put rings around all the cases and\ncontacts so that every case that we prevent basically prevents another 60 to\n100 cases down the road. Together, with your efforts at physical distancing, as\nwell as hand hygiene and our efforts at case and contact containment, and with\nthe hospitals\u2019 efforts at testing, we should be able to come out of this soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the start of the week also brought difficult news on\nthe job front as the Town announced the layoff of 280 part-time municipal\nworkers under the terms of a Declared Emergency Leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs everyone is aware, the current pandemic continues to\nimpact our country and community in unprecedented ways,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas in a\nstatement. \u201cMillions of people are out of work and struggling to cope with the\nincredible fallout of this emergency. So far, the Town has been able to keep\nour staff intact as we provide the essential services our community relies on.\nHowever, with the Federal Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) starting\nthis week, we are making a necessary adjustment to our workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did not make this decision lightly. These employees\nprimarily provide services in our facilities and recreational programming and\nour facilities are closed for the foreseeable future. We expect each of these\npeople will be eligible to access funds through the CERB and we will be\nsupporting them through the application process to minimize the impact on their\nsituation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe look forward to healthier times in the future when\nthese valuable team members are able to resume their important work in our\ncommunity as we reopen facilities and offer programs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Council convened remotely on March 31 for its first\nCouncil meeting since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of all Town\nfacilities and the temporary suspension of regular meetings, the future of\nemployees was top of mind as local lawmakers received an update from Town CAO\nDoug Nadorozny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Nadorozny told Councillors at this remote meeting\nthat only \u201cminimal staff\u201d are at municipal facilities to keep \u201ccore services\nfunctioning\u201d \u2013 essential services like water testing and road maintenance \u2013\nwith most of the rest of staff working from home. But there were many part-time\nworkers whose jobs could not be transitioned to \u201ca home scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, Council members said they need to find a\nbalance between protecting jobs and making sure taxpayers are getting value for\nmoney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to protect our staff, but, at the same time, we\nhave a responsibility to our residents and the taxpayers because there are a\nlot of residents who have been hit hard by this,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas at the\nmeeting regarding the wide-ranging impacts being felt across the board due to\nCOVID-19. \u201cWe have to respect that and respect that money. We have to make a\nfiscally responsible decision but we also have to do what is best for the\ncorporation as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is going to be a tough decision for us, but I am confident our CAO and staff are going to provide us with some options\u2026and I think we will have something in front of us to allow us to make a solid decision that will allow us to respect our employees yet, at the same time, be fiscally responsible to our residents and taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora’s first COVID-19-related death reported by Region of York on Monday as Town lays off nearly 300 part-time workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Qu","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 15:27:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}