Second airport quarantine hotel has COVID-19 outbreak

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This article was published 10/05/2021 (1623 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Seven workers at the Holiday Inn Toronto Airport have tested positive for COVID-19, making it the second government-authorized quarantine hotel with an outbreak.

The hotel is one of several being used to quarantine international travellers while they await COVID-19 test results after having arrived at Pearson International Airport.

News of the outbreak, which was officially declared over on May 4, was posted online by Toronto Public Health recently.

The head of the union representing workers at the hotel called on the hotel to pay a shift premium for working the front lines.

“The challenges these workers face while acting as our city’s first line of defence against travel-related outbreaks needs to be recognized and compensated accordingly,” Guled Warsame, president of Unite Here Local 75, said in an emailed statement.

Warsame also urged governments to hold pop-up vaccination clinics as close to the hotels as possible, to ensure workers are protected.

“We are very much in favour of having pop-up vaccination clinics accessible for hotel workers, particularly those in the airport area,” Warsame said.

Workers’ rights advocate Deena Ladd blasted the implementation of the quarantine hotel system unveiled in February, saying the outbreaks are evidence workers haven’t been protected properly.

“It’s appalling how the essential workers are the last ones thought of when making these decisions. They’re putting their lives on the line, but no one thinks about them until there’s an outbreak,” said Ladd, executive director of the Workers’ Action Centre.

Ladd said working in an indoor environment with international travellers is an inherently-high risk job for hotel staff.

“Why aren’t we thinking about how to look after the people who are looking after the travellers? They should have made sure from day one of this system that all the workers were vaccinated, and that they were getting a COVID premium. They’re looking after people who are being quarantined,” said Ladd.

A spokesperson for Ontario solicitor general Sylvia Jones, who is helping direct the workplace vaccination effort, said decisions on which businesses get the clinics are left up to public health authorities in each region.

“These mobile units are offering vaccinations in Toronto, York and Peel public health unit regions at select businesses that have employees who cannot work from home and have a history or risk of outbreaks. The local public health unit will determine which small to medium-sized businesses where mobile units will be deployed,” said Stephen Warner.

Toronto Public Health, in turn, said the hotels fall under the jurisdiction of the Public Health Agency of Canada, because the quarantine for international travellers was a federal decision.

The Public Health Agency of Canada wasn’t able to respond in time for the Star’s deadline for this story.

An email seeking comment from IHG Hotels Group, which owns the Holiday Inn brand, wasn’t answered.

Last week, the city revealed that 13 workers at the Crowne Plaza Toronto Airport Hotel had tested positive.

At the time, TPH said the Crowne Plaza wouldn’t be ordered to fully close despite the outbreak, because it “provides an essential service to keep Torontonians safe.”

Canada’s quarantine rules for international air travellers require incoming passengers to book three nights in an approved hotel, and to stay there until they get the results of a COVID-19 test that they take upon arrival.

Those with negative test results can continue their 14-day quarantine at home.

Josh Rubin is a Toronto-based business reporter. Follow him on Twitter: @starbeer