By Moira Warburton
TORONTO (Reuters) – Ontario is considering “next steps” to limit the spread of COVID-19, Premier Doug Ford said on Twitter on Monday, amid calls to put Canada’s most populous province under more stringent lockdown as the pandemic overwhelms its hospitals.
Ford is widely expected to announce further restrictions after Ontario health authorities release new case modeling on Tuesday, which the premier has previously described as “a wake up call to anyone who’s seen it.”
Canada’s economic engine has been under lockdown since Dec. 26, shuttering non-essential businesses and extending closure of elementary schools in some parts last week.
Yet the daily number of COVID-19 cases has spiked above 3,500 on average over the past seven days, government data showed. That is straining Ontario’s hospitals, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) reported on Monday the modeling would show Ontario’s intensive care units would be filled beyond capacity by mid-February.
Ford said in a tweet on Sunday the province’s healthcare system was “on the brink of being overwhelmed.”
CBC reported the new measures could include cutting hours for essential businesses, curtailing construction activity and reducing gathering limits to five people, down from the current limit of 10 outdoors. But the province is unlikely to impose a curfew, CBC reported.
Last week Quebec, Canada’s worst-affected province from COVID-19, became the first in the country to introduce a curfew to limit the spread.
“If you said to me, going short of a curfew, that you had to (impose) more hours of restriction on when people could be going out to get food, I would be perfectly comfortable with that,” John Tory, mayor of Toronto, told a local TV station on Monday.
The new modeling will be announced on Tuesday morning, a government official said.
(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Toronto; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
