Ontario to ease COVID-19 restrictions on restaurants and gyms starting Monday

Finally, a reason to wait for Monday.

Restaurants, bars and gyms may start welcoming more customers starting Monday under a long-awaited lowering of Ontario’s COVID-19 capacity limits, Star learned.

The measures are part of a “comprehensive” roadmap to be outlined Friday by Prime Minister Doug Ford and Medical Director Dr. Kieran Moore for the next phase of the province’s pandemic reopening plan, the sources said.

Reinforced by the lack of a post-Thanksgiving spike in new cases, the liberalization follows a steady easing of restrictions in recent months and will be announced as a new QR code system takes effect on Friday. for smartphones as proof of vaccination in non-essential locations.

Senior government officials, speaking confidentially to discuss internal deliberations, said Ford’s cabinet approved the changes at a meeting Thursday after opinion from Moore and other health experts.

“Some limits start to be lifted next week. Restaurants and gyms ”, confided a senior official.

Another said that some bans will be gradually lifted to gauge their impact. Gyms, for example, have been limited to 50 percent of capacity since they were allowed to reopen in July, and restaurants have also been restricted since indoor dining was resumed.

As part of the plan, Moore has promised “dates, timelines and data by which we anticipate a further reopening of the economy with a cautious, tiered and phased approach,” while Ford has advised patience as health officials continue to watch closely. key indicators of the pandemic.

“I’m not going to rush because whatever you do in this pandemic, rush it, it can come back and be counterproductive for you,” the prime minister warned a week ago.

Clarity and detailed thresholds for case levels, intensive care unit admissions, and other benchmarks are what the business community has been asking for, especially since capacity restrictions in venues like professional sports arenas, halls Concerts and cinemas were suddenly lifted on Thanksgiving weekend, while limits remained in place for places like restaurants and gyms.

“That is still upsetting business owners,” Ryan Mallough of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said Thursday afternoon as a series of reopening proposals headed to Ford’s cabinet for discussion.

“If the Scotiabank Arena can be open at 100% capacity, why not a restaurant?”

James Rilett of Restaurants Canada said the government has not adequately answered that question, and that has hurt the industry as it tries to recover from months of indoor restaurant closures.

“We need the government and the medical director to deliver messages that restaurants are a safe place to go out and eat, because their messages over the past two weeks have been problematic for the industry,” Rilett told the Star.

“We really want the distancing requirements to be removed.”

Dr. Peter Juni, scientific director of the scientific board of volunteers who advise Ford, told Star’s May Warren this week that studies have shown that outbreaks are due to people taking off their masks (for dinner, for example) in poorly ventilated indoor spaces.

Whatever the reason restaurants and other venues shouldn’t be fully reopened, the government should clarify the details and provide guidance on how the problems can be overcome, perhaps with aid money to improve ventilation, Mallough said.

“Ultimately what we want to see is a level playing field,” he said.

“I echo the screams of restaurateurs about how you can eat a pig dog and drink a beer shoulder to shoulder with someone at a sporting event, but you can’t do it in front of someone’s table in a restaurant.”

With cooler weather after an unusually mild start to fall, medical experts warn that the keyword is caution. They say the risk of further spread of COVID-19 remains as more people gather indoors and the highly contagious Delta variant continues to circulate despite slow rising vaccination rates.

The province reported 413 new cases of the virus and four deaths on Thursday. The seven-day average of infections dropped to 406, its lowest point since early August. Admissions to the intensive care unit are also stable and vaccination levels have increased, with nearly 84 percent of Ontarians over the age of 12 fully vaccinated.

“It is wonderful to see that Ontario is doing so well in keeping COVID-19 rates low. This is likely due to a slow and methodical reopening plan coupled with maintaining public health measures, “infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch wrote on Twitter Thursday.

But he added: “It is still too early for the ‘mission accomplished’ banner.”

That’s why the province must be ready to reinstate restrictions if trends go in the wrong direction like they did last winter, when a spring shutdown was needed to stem a third wave, Bogoch said.

“I was there, I did that. The pandemic is not over (yet). “