Shomporko Desk:-TORONTO – Toronto and Peel Region will push forward to Stage 3 of Ontario’s reopening plan on Friday.
The provincial government made the declaration on Wednesday morning.
“The decision was made in consultation with the Chief Medical Officer of Health and local medical officers of health,” a news release gave by the Ontario government said.
“It depends on positive local trends of key public health indicators, including the lower transmission of COVID-19, ongoing hospital capacity, public health capacity to lead quick case and contact the executives, and a huge increase in testing.”
The two territories will formally enter Stage 3 at 12:01 a.m. on Friday.
Windsor-Essex will now be the only region in Ontario remaining in Stage.
“Ontario will continue to monitor local trends of key public health indicators in the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit region and move it into Stage 3 when it is safe to do so,” the government said.
The three regions waiting to move forward to Stage 3 were held back because of their daily COVID-19 case counts.
In Stage 3, indoor dining can resume at bars and restaurants and the size of gatherings can increase to 50 indoors and 100 outdoors.
Physical distancing is still required during any gathering with people from outside an individual’s social circle. The province is not increasing the number of people a person can gather without physical distancing measures in place.
Toronto Mayor John Tory said Wednesday morning that moving to Stage 3 is the “result of a lot of hard work by Torontonians and our frontline workers.”
On Tuesday, Toronto, Canada’s largest city, reported just one new case of COVID-19.
“It seems like a long way from the scary days of the winter when we were having our meetings at the beginning of the pandemic and hearing numbers that were almost incomprehensible, in terms of case counts and also projections as to how many people could lose their lives or become ill,” Tory said.
“You could go down to zero and I hope that happens but after that, we’ve just got to stay vigilant. COVID-19 doesn’t go away just because we are in Stage 3.”
Photo credit: DAN JANISSE / Windsor Star
News source: CTV News
