Another Ontario-wide shutdown has been confirmed.
Today, Premier Doug Ford said he is pulling the emergency brake for the entire province. All 34 health units are affected. The shutdown is for at least four weeks and is effective April 3.
Schools will remain open for in-person learning, with strict measures.
"The spring break will continue as planned for the week of April 12. In order to support working families, child care will remain open during the shutdown. Child care settings will continue to adhere to stringent health and safety measures so that they remain safe places for children and staff," reads the announcement.
The third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario is being driven by variants of concern and younger people are being hospitalized.
For more than a week in Ontario, the daily case numbers have been more than 2,000. Today, 2.557 new cases were reported by Public Health Ontario.
For the new measures, people are asked to limit trips outside the home for essential purposes. Those include food, medication, medical appointments, supporting vulnerable community members or exercising outdoors with members of their household. Employers should make "every effort" to have employees work from home.
The shutdown measures include:
- Indoor organized public events and social gatherings are prohibited. The capacity for outdoor organized public events or social gatherings is a maximum of five people, except for gatherings with members or the same household or gatherings with one household and one person from another household who lives alone.
- In-person shopping is restricted to 50 per cent capacity for supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, indoor farmers' markets, stores that primarily sell food, and pharmacies. The capacity is 25 per cent for al other retail, including big box stores.
- Personal care services are prohibited.
- Indoor and outdoor dining is prohibited. Restaurants are allowed to operate by take-out, drive-through and delivery.
- Gyms are closed.
- Capacity at weddings, funerals and religious services, rites or ceremonies is limited to 15 per cent capacity per room indoors. This does not include social gatherings associated with these services such as receptions, which are not permitted indoors and are limited to five people outdoors.
The last stay-at-home order and state of emergency in the province lifted in mid-February.
Health unit regions transitioned back to the COVID-19 Response Framework, with five colour-coded levels of varying restrictions.
When the stay-at-home order lifted, the Porcupine Health Unit moved to the orange - restrict level. The restrictions were decreased a couple weeks ago and the region is in the yellow - protect level right now.
To date, there have been 361 confirmed cases in the Porcupine Health Unit region. Of those, 322 are recovered and 22 people have died. There are 14 known active cases.
