Police refuse to do stayat-home Covid checks

Police in cities across Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, have refused to make random stops to enforce a stay-athome order amid a spike in Covid-19 cases, embarrassing the local government.

Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, is facing criticism for mishandling the province’s pandemic response. The change of course highlights Canada’s failures in recent weeks after it won plaudits for its handling of the first wave.

A surge in cases, driven by new variants spreading especially in factories and warehouses, and pandemic fatigue has pushed Canada’s per capita daily cases ahead of the US for the first time.

‘‘I’ve never shied away from telling you the brutal, honest truth,’’ Ford, 56, said. ‘‘We’re losing the battle between the variants and vaccines.’’

Police in Toronto, Ontario’s largest city, and Ottawa, Canada’s capital, have joined at least 21 other municipal forces in saying they would not stop people and vehicles at random to ask them to explain their reason for being out. They have had the power to do so as part of beefed-up coronavirus restrictions since Saturday. ‘‘The Toronto Police Service will continue to engage, educate and enforce, but we will not be doing random stops of people or cars,’’ the force said on

Twitter, amid an outcry from civil liberties groups, who said the powers could increase racial profiling.

‘‘We are all going through a horrific year,’’ Steve Tanner, the chief of Hamilton police, said. ‘‘[We] will NOT be randomly stopping vehicles for no reason.’’

Ontario, home to 38 per cent of Canada’s population, reported 4362 new infections on Saturday, down slightly from a record high on Friday, and projections suggest that cases could hit 10,000 per day by the end of May. Intensive care units are close to being overwhelmed and doctors say patients are younger.

‘‘The variants have changed the game for us completely,’’ said Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba, and Canada Research Chair of emerging viruses.

While Ontario faces the greatest burden, other provinces are seeing signs of a similar crisis. ‘‘It’s not unlike watching a hurricane coming in,’’ he said. ‘‘You know it’s going to come but you don’t necessarily know when it’s going to hit.’’

Ontario has closed schools, restaurants, outdoor sports and cancelled non-urgent surgery but has refused to shut warehouses or factories.

Ford, a pugnacious populist who won plaudits last year for his straight-talking press conferences, has established checkpoints on roads into neighbouring provinces.