In Toronto, only essential stores, such as supermarkets, can currently receive customers.
Photographer: Cole Burston / Bloomberg
Photographer: Cole Burston / Bloomberg
The Ontario government dismissed plans to allow more businesses to reopen in Toronto after city officials warned it would be a deadly mistake.
Home stay requests will remain in effect until at least March 8 in Canada’s largest city and financial center, as well as in two other regions in the province. Toronto was expected to return to less stringent measures on February 22, allowing the limited opening of some retail businesses that have been closed to face-to-face activity since November.
“These are difficult but necessary decisions in order to protect against Covid-19 variants and maintain the progress we have all made together,” said Health Minister Christine Elliott in a statement. demonstration.
The reversal came after city officials, including Toronto Mayor John Tory, urged Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford to slow down the reopening plans, which would have allowed distressed retailers to open at 25% capacity.
‘Completely insulting’
At the moment, only essential stores, such as supermarkets, are allowed to receive customers; restaurants, dining rooms, cinemas and many other indoor businesses are also closed.
THE The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses criticized the government’s decision. “Being asked to just take it a little longer is an unacceptable and totally insulting response to the thousands of employers and their tens of thousands of employees whose livelihood is at stake,” the group said in a statement. demonstration.
Toronto Chief Medical Officer Eileen de Villa warned that the city is in an apparently dangerous situation. Although the growth of new cases of Covid-19 has slowed, the experience of other countries, including Germany, has shown that new “variants of concern”, or VOCs, are able to emerge with little warning, she said.
On February 17, 93,850 Covid-19 cases were confirmed in Toronto.
Across the province, the number of cases has been decreasing for weeks. There were 385 confirmed cases of the British variant of the virus and nine cases of the South African variant, according to government data on February 18.
The extended blockade also applies to Peel, a densely populated suburban region west of Toronto, and North Bay-Parry Sound.
Vaccine Reduction
Previous Friday, Health officials released estimates that the province will receive about 2.6 million doses of vaccines per month in the second quarter, below previous estimates of 5 million per month. But they expect the pace of deliveries and vaccinations to pick up in July.
Retired General Rick Hillier, who is in charge of Ontario’s vaccine logistics, said at a news conference on Friday that it will likely be “well into the summer” before younger, less vulnerable people can get the vaccine.
“The number of vaccines, unfortunately, does not support us to do this faster,” said Hillier.
An Ontario health ministry spokesman said the second quarter’s 2.6 million monthly projection is based on the supply of the two vaccines already approved for use in Canada – the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTeck shot and the one developed by Moderna Inc. The approval of other vaccines by Canadian authorities may change the numbers.
(Adds additional information about vaccine projections at the end of the story.)