Ontario reports 1,038 new cases of COVID-19, 44 more deaths
- par Carole Baillairge
- dans Divertissement
- — Fév 20, 2021
"I'm sure we're gonna follow the advice of the doctors".
Chief medical officers for Toronto and Peel have written to the province asking for a two week delay in re-opening until March 9th amid a rise in COVID variant cases.
De Villa and Loh said in their letter that they were concerned by the threat posed by more contagious variants of the virus. The province has also noted that one case of the Brazil variant, also known as P.1, was also found in Ontario.
"We want you to stay home whenever you can, go out only for essentials even if those services are now available", he said.
Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, said she has never been as anxious about the future as she is now because of coronavirus variants.
Active cases are one-quarter what they were a month ago, but Miller said "these numbers continue to be alarming". "It's a combination of qualitative and quantitative information that feeds into it".
Williams added that while the province's cases continue to trend downward, Ontario remains in a "precarious" place because of the variant strains.
The announcement comes as Ontario is set to announce whether it will lift a stay-at-home order and other restrictions for COVID-19 hotspots next week.
Loh says if the province does move Peel back into the framework, it must bolster protections for workers.
"By the time the confirmed case counts are big enough to shock us it will be too late to do anything, we will be in a third wave as bad as anything we have been through thus far", de Villa said. We also acknowledge that the Province has instituted an "emergency brake" provision that allows the local Medical Officer of Health to reinstate maximum restrictions if their jurisdiction experiences rapid acceleration in COVID-19 transmission or if its health care system risks becoming overwhelmed.
York Region's medical officer of health, however, has said his community is ready to see an easing of the strictest measures.
Dr. Karim Kurji, York Region's medial officer of health, has asked that his region be place into the 'Red-Zone' of the provincial framework.
NY opened restaurants to indoor dining last weekend, Chicago is expanding the capacity limits for restaurants that are already open.
Heath Canada said provinces could expect to receive shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech product at least a day behind schedule, but all 400,000 doses should be in Canada by Friday.
A total of 205,802 people in Ontario have received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and are now fully vaccinated against the disease.
The province also deemed 1,277 more cases of the disease to be resolved as of Thursday, bringing Ontario's number of recovered patients up to 272,146.
The health unit in North Bay Parry Sound did not immediately respond to request for comment on Thursday.
Miller said that, as of Tuesday, there had been more than 19,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases on First Nation reserves, almost 1,400 of which were active.
