RE:RE:COVID-19’s impact on hospital services | CIHI Ontario is moving schools online for at least two weeks, temporarily closing indoor dining and gyms and pausing non-urgent medical procedures as it faces record-high case counts that, according to public health officials, threaten to overwhelm the province's health-care system.
Premier Doug Ford announced the changes at a morning news conference Monday. He was joined by his ministers of health and finance, as well Ontario's chief medical officer of health and the CEO of Ontario Health.
The new restrictions are part of a modified version of Step Two of the province's Roadmap to Reopen, which was first implemented earlier last year.
"Our public health experts tell us we could see hundreds of thousands of cases every day," Ford said of the ongoing surge of new COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant.
He said that this could mean hospitals end up thousands of beds short.
"If we don't do everything possible to get this variant under control, the results could be catastrophic. It is a risk I cannot take."