The mayor of Ontario’s largest city called for a return to a full lockdown Monday, saying the move is necessary to prevent the health-care system from being completely overwhelmed by a surge of COVID-19 cases.
John Tory stressed the “urgency of acting quickly” in enacting new restrictions, a day before the provincial government is expected to announce a series of additional pandemic measures.
Ontario’s latest COVID-19 modelling will project the province’s intensive care units to be filled beyond capacity by early February, and will also show how a new, more contagious variant of the coronavirus risks accelerating the spread of infections, sources tell CBC News.
In Ontario, where multiple levels of government are trying to prevent infected travellers from bringing the virus in from abroad, experts warn regional movement remains a far greater driver of transmission. But it may also be trickier to curb — even as the presence of several highly transmissible new variants of the virus make it crucial to slow local spread.
The government is reportedly considering having the measures in place from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. It would mean that most residents could not leave their properties during that time.
Meanwhile, Toronto Mayor John Tory urged the Ford government to “get on with it,” when it came to enacting new public health measures.
Chief Stephen Tanner of Halton Regional Police Service travelled out of the locked-down province of Ontario to Florida, allegedly to take care of personal business.
With Ontario premier Doug Ford warning of “extreme” new measures to try and curb the spike in COVID-19 cases, a new public opinion poll finds a majority of Ontarians would be in favour of strengthening a number of current lockdown measures at least for the next 30 days.
There’s no getting around it — lockdown measures don’t seem to be working in Ontario and Quebec the second time around.
Health experts say Canada’s hardest-hit provinces have consistently failed to contain the spread of COVID-19 with inadequate, poorly timed restrictions, leaving little choice but for much more draconian rules to be introduced.
But where exactly did we go wrong? And where do we go from here?
Premier Doug Ford delivered a grim warning Friday as COVID-19 cases in Ontario surge to unprecedented levels.
He said that if basic public health measures “continue to be ignored” in the province, the consequences “will be dire.”
“The shutdown won’t end at the end of January, and we will have to look at more extreme measures,” he said.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath made the request formally in a news release sent on Monday, asking members of provincial parliament to return to Queen’s Park despite the two-month winter break that started in early December.
According to provincial data, 207 of the 626 long-term care homes in Ontario are currently experiencing outbreaks of the virus, including 19 new ones reported Sunday.
The CEO of the Ontario Long-Term Care Association, which represents nearly 70 per cent of homes in the province, says the rising number of outbreaks is pushing the system to its limits.
Federally, the Conservatives regularly rail against Justin Trudeau’s entitlement, slamming the perception that he believes the rules apply to everyone else, but not to him.
And yet, we are watching and seeing that Conservative politicians are turning out to be a bunch of entitled hypocrites, who demonstrate the same behaviour they attack in others.
The province’s associate chief medical officer of health Dr. Barbara Yaffe made the announcement in a news release Saturday.
Officials said the cases involve a couple from Durham Region with no known travel history, exposure, or high-risk contacts. Both are now in self-isolation.
Do the various governments still maintain the consent of the governed?
It’s an interesting question given the Ontario government recently plunged the province back into another lockdown.
