Ontario lockdown8/13/2023 ![]() Kieran Moore said the return to school date would be pushed by two days to Wednesday but would still be in-person. ![]() The move comes after last Thursday's announcement, when Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. The province announced all publicly funded and private schools will move to remote learning starting Jan. 5 until at least Jan. 17.įord said the decision to close schools, a move that would last at least two weeks, was taken because the province couldn't guarantee schools would be fully staffed with so many teachers expected to be off sick. Ontario to stop logging COVID-19 school cases, memo says NDP calls it 'terrifying for parents'.Ontario backtracks, delays return to in-person classes for at least 2 weeks."If we don't do everything possible to get this variant under control, the results could be catastrophic. He said that this could mean hospitals end up thousands of beds short. "Our public health experts tell us we could see hundreds of thousands of cases every day," Ford said of the ongoing surge of new COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant. The new restrictions are part of a modified version of Step Two of the province's Roadmap to Reopen, which was first implemented earlier last year. He was joined by his ministers of health and finance, as well Ontario's chief medical officer of health and the CEO of Ontario Health. Premier Doug Ford announced the changes at a morning news conference Monday. "Friends, I know we're all eager to get back to some sense of normal, but at a time when contagious variants pose real risk to our province, we can't rush to reopen.Ontario is moving schools online for at least two weeks, temporarily closing indoor dining and gyms and pausing non-urgent medical procedures as it faces record-high case counts that, according to public health officials, threaten to overwhelm the province's health-care system. "Obviously that won't mean large sporting events or concerts, but if we manage the next few weeks properly, I believe we can have things in a very good place this summer," said the premier from Queen's Park. "Extending the stay-at-home order significantly increases the likelihood Ontarians can enjoy a less restrictive summer and have a 'more normal' fall."įord said similarly today in one of his first public appearances since retreating into isolation after a workplace exposure to COVID that his goal is for us to "have the most normal summer possible." "The province is not yet ready to lift the stay-at-home order while about 2,000 people are testing positive for COVID-19 every day and 1,800 people are so sick they need hospital care, 800 of them in intensive care units," wrote the Ontario Medical Association in a statement on Wednesday. Hospitalization and ICU admissions also remain too high and well above the peak of wave two."Īll people in Ontario are encouraged to stay at home whenever possible and adhere to the ongoing provincewide shutdown rules. "From May 3 to 9, the provincial cases rate remained very high at 134.9 cases per 100,000 people, and per cent positivity was above the high alert threshold of 2.5 per cent. "Despite improvements, key indicators remain high and more time is required before the province can safely lift the Stay-at-Home Order," reads a release from the provincial government issued Thursday afternoon. It's a move that Ford and his medical advisors say is necessary to keep daily case numbers tracking downward, keep hospital ICUs from becoming overwhelmed, and to prevent a deadly fourth wave of the pandemic. This will bring the latest provincewide COVID shutdown period up to a full eight weeks - longer, if measures are extended again after June 2. Ontario will officially remain in lockdown for at least two more weeks after the government's current stay-at-home order expires on May 19, Premier Doug Ford has announced.
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