Hamilton Public Health urging local bars and restaurants to follow COVID-19 protocol

Hamilton Public Health has sent letters to bar and restaurant owners in the city reminding them to follow COVID-19 protocols.

And it says they should start keeping a log of customers to aid with contact tracing.

This comes almost a week after a Hamilton woman with COVID-19 visited Cause and Effect on Saturday night. The woman only found out she was positive the next day (she visited the restaurant while waiting for test results). Public health reviewed the incident but said she was not symptomatic and as of now, it doesn't appear anyone else was infected.

"It's a very low risk situation ... it would've been the individuals who were at the table with this client [who were at the highest risk] and they were already ongoing contacts [with her]," Michelle Baird, director of healthy and safe communities at Hamilton Public Health, told CBC News.

The incident gained social media attention because of videos and images showing people almost shoulder-to-shoulder posted on Saturday and Sunday.

Cause and Effect's general manager previously told CBC News they were trying their best at the time and would try to learn how to improve their methods.

Public health states restaurants and bars should take a number of preventative measures including:

• Physical distancing between tables.
• Face coverings being worn by staff.
• Face coverings being worn by customers except when eating or drinking.
• Customers remaining seated except when going to the washroom or paying the bill.
• Keeping a log of customers attending at the premise.

Public health and municipal law enforcement will be inspecting various businesses and responding to complaints at bars and restaurants.

20 active cases in Hamilton

Public health reports 20 active cases in Hamilton as of Friday. That's three up from Monday.

Public health says 895 people are known to have been infected in Hamilton, an increase of eight from Monday. COVID-19 has killed 45 people in the city and 830 have recovered.

Hamilton Health Sciences says it has five or fewer COVID-19 patients in its care.

"We're still seeing very low numbers locally. Day to day we see bits of change, but we're dealing with low numbers overall," Baird said.

"We continue to see cases in that young adult range and all of this to say the cases aren't at zero, there are active cases in our community."

Brant

There are seven people in Brant/Brantford known to have COVID-19. One person is in hospital.

There have been 142 confirmed cases. Of those, 131 have recovered and four have died.

Haldimand-Norfolk

Both counties have a combined 29 known COVID-19 cases right now. 

The total number of confirmed cases is 458. Of those, 397 people have recovered and 32 have died. 

Halton

There are 23 people known to have COVID-19 in Halton. The region has 910 known cases (827 confirmed, 83 probable). That's just one more since Monday.

Of those, 862 people have recovered and 25 people have died.

In Burlington, five people are known to have the virus right now. The city has seen 188 cases, of which 176 have recovered and seven have died.

Niagara

Niagara began implementing an indoor masking policy over the weekend. There are 75 active cases in the region. That's 13 more than Monday.

It has seen 866 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic.

Of the total cases, 727 people have recovered and 64 people have died.