Reopening Ontario
Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Williams says all the indicators show there is no reason not to reopen on Friday.
Dr. Williams also said the reason behind the 21-day wait period between stages is to allow for the vaccinations to kick in and the case numbers to settle.
Associate Medical Officer Dr. Barbara Yaffe added that it takes two, sometimes even three weeks for the vaccine to take hold and start working.
Williams says if we go from Step One to Step Two, we do not want to go back to Step One, so the 21 days will give officials enough time to study trends.
A look at the numbers
COVID-19 numbers continue to decline steadily in the Sudbury, Manitoulin and Algoma districts.
Public Health Sudbury & Districts is reporting two new cases of the virus, both in the Sudbury District.
Considering resolved cases, there are 27 active cases within the agency’s jurisdiction.
Health Sciences North is reporting there are nine admitted patients, six who tested positive and three that waiting for test results.
Of the six, four are in the intensive care.
There are no new cases being reported by Algoma Public Health.
Considering resolved cases, there are only five active cases, one of which is an individual from outside the district.
There are two individuals in hospital who are both from outside the health unit’s jurisdiction, but receiving care locally.
Ontario is reported its lowest number of COVID-19 cases since last September yesterday.
The province added 525 new cases.
The recovery rate has reached 97 per cent with more recoveries than new cases reported.
International travel restrictions
Ottawa is looking at taking a phased approach to welcoming back international visitors as pandemic restrictions loosen.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the plan would focus on case counts globally as part of decision-making.
Federal officials have looked to restrict movement of non-essential travellers for more than a year because of the pandemic.
Trudeau said he expects high interest from overseas travellers to visit Canada as those restrictions eventually ease because of vaccination uptake rates and case counts that are better than peer
countries.
He cautioned they don’t want to move too fast as they don’t want to see another wave of new COVID-19 cases.