The new order will take effect on Thursday and will apply in Toronto and Ottawa. It is the second of its kind since the pandemic began.
“I was here last week and I told you that our province is in crisis,” Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford told a news conference in Toronto on Tuesday. “The facts are clear: cases and deaths are the highest since the beginning of the pandemic, and the spread of the community continues to escalate.”
For at least four weeks, the Ontario government will “require everyone to stay home except for essential purposes, such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy, accessing health care, exercise or essential work,” according to the statement. provided by CNN.
All non-essential retail stores and meals in person have been closed in Ontario for Christmas Day and in Toronto since the end of November. Schools in Ontario’s hot spots, including Toronto and its suburbs, will not resume personal learning until at least February 10th.
“We need to change our mobility patterns, too many people have too many contacts. Increased contacts result from increased mobility,” said Christine Elliott, Ontario’s health minister. “So, to interrupt this cycle, you have to stay home as long as possible and that starts with a home stay order.”
Officials have promised strict enforcement of the new restrictions and warned those violating the measures that they could be fined thousands of dollars and could face up to a year in prison.
Ontario’s ICUs are already approaching capacity
The second Canadian wave of Covid-19 is now more widespread and more serious than the first, with a seven-day national average of 8,100 new cases a day, a high pandemic, according to the Canadian Public Health Agency.
Ontario public health officials warned at a news conference Tuesday that one in four Ontario ICUs were already full and that the hospital system was threatened with overcrowding.
Ontario reported 14 cases of new variants in the province, but officials said what is more worrying is the discovery of three unrelated travel cases this week, which could indicate that the variant is already in the community and is spreads.
“Three of our cases do not have a history of travel,” said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, an associate health officer in Ontario. “If this is confirmed, we have evidence of community transmission and this is a very serious concern that the vaccine will not be able to be addressed quickly enough.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government was buying another 20 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, adding that Canada would have at least 80 million doses of vaccine available by the fall. Canada currently administers the Moderna vaccine.
Trudeau reiterated his promise that every Canadian who wanted the vaccine would be vaccinated by September.
“We are doing everything we can to bring more doses, to speed up the process,” Trudeau told a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday. Because we know that the sooner we vaccinate as many Canadians as possible, the faster we will get through this pandemic.
CNN’s Elizabeth Hartfield contributed to this report.