Province expected to extend state of emergency until June 2
More workplaces could be reopened
TORONTO—Ontario is expected to extend its COVID-19 state of emergency to the beginning of June, as retail stores were allowed to partly reopen and the top doctor suggested more restrictions could be loosened soon.
The provincial legislature will sit Tuesday and is expected to extend the province’s state of emergency to June 2, while also holding question period again.
The state of emergency is dealt with separately from the emergency orders, recently extended to May 19, which cover closures of bars and restaurants except for takeout and delivery, theatres, outdoor amenities such as playgrounds, and childcare centres.
Ontario has previously announced that publicly funded schools will be closed until at least May 31, and Ford said that news on child-care centres and schools is coming early next week.
In the meantime, Education Minister Stephen Lecce encouraged school boards to delay events such as proms and graduation ceremonies to the summer or fall, rather than cancel them outright.
Ontario has seen a decline in both number of new cases and the positivity rate of testing, while contact tracing is improving, the chief medical officer of health said.
“This continues to move us in the overall direction of a downward trend,” Dr. David Williams said.
Williams said that by the weekend, health officials may consider advising the province to move to the first stage of its reopening plan, which includes opening select workplaces, allowing for more people at certain events such as funerals, and having hospitals resume some non-urgent surgeries.
Stores in Ontario were allowed to reopen Monday for curbside pickup and delivery, a move Ford has said will allow thousands of people to return to work.
Several Toronto-area malls said some of their stores with street entrances were offering curbside pickup Monday, or would be in the coming days.
The measure announced last week is meant to help ramp the economy back up after the pandemic caused unprecedented job losses.
According to data released Friday by Statistics Canada, 689,200 Ontarians lost their jobs in April, in addition to the 403,000 the agency says were lost in March.
Garden centres, nurseries, hardware stores and provincial parks have also been allowed to reopen.
Ontario reported 308 new cases of COVID-19 Monday — a 1.5 per cent increase over Sunday — and 35 more deaths. That brings the province to a total of 20,546 cases, including 1,669 deaths and 15,131 resolved cases.