Premier Doug Ford enacted a provincial state of emergency Wednesday afternoon and has announced a province-wide, four-week long stay at home order to stop the spread of COVID-19.
With rising COVID-19 cases and more young people being hospitalized, the order goes into effect Thursday morning at midnight.
“The Covid-19 situation is at a critical stage and we must act quickly and decisively to stay ahead of these deadly new variants,” says Premier Ford, “By imposing these strict new measures we will keep people safe while allowing our vaccination program to reach more people, starting with our high-risk population and identified hot spots”
Non-essential retail outlets will be restricted to curbside pickup only and big-box stores will be restricted to essential aisles only. Those essential aisles include pharmaceutical, health care and personal care items, groceries, household cleaning supplies and pet care supplies.
Some stores will be allowed to have in-person shopping by appointment only and subject to a 25 per cent capacity limit including:
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- Safety supply stores
- Businesses that primarily sell, rent or repair assistive devices, aids or supplies, mobility devices, aids or supplies or medical devices, aids or supplies;
- Rental and leasing services including automobile, commercial and light industrial machinery and equipment rental;
- Optical stores that sell prescription eyewear to the public;
- Businesses that sell motor vehicles, boats and other watercraft;
- Vehicle and equipment repair and essential maintenance and vehicle and equipment rental services; and
- Retail stores operated by a telecommunications provider or service, which may only permit members of the public to enter the premises to purchase a cellphone or for repairs or technical support.
Garden centres, plant nurseries and indoor greenhouses will be allowed to operate with a 25 per cent capacity limit.
While tighter restrictions will be in place for retail stores, schools and daycares are set to remain open for in-person care and learning with strict safety measures in place, where allowed by local health units.
Starting next week, education workers who provide direct support to students with special education needs across the province, and all education workers in select hot spot areas, will be eligible to register for vaccination. The Northwestern Health Unit has yet to confirm if education workers will be eligible to register for the shot in our to our catchment area.
Solicitor General Sylvia Jones says the stay at home order will be enforced, though did not provide any details as to what that would look like.
Premier Ford says that they expect to have upwards of 40 per-cent of all adults in the province vaccinated by the end of the stay at home order.
The Premier added that anyone calling for paid sick days from the Ford Government is just playing politics as Ottawa already has a program in place.
This is the third state of emergency in Ontario since the pandemic began.
